The Fog is about as cinematically interesting as pea soup. Which is director Rupert Wainwright’s favourite soup, incidentally. And, perhaps less coincidentally, the film’s muddled plot has the same consistency. When directing a ghost story, it’s not fair to viewers to keep changing the mechanism by which the ghosts enact their fearsome return to the land of the living. Here, Mr. Wainwright makes it a habit. And the result is a disjointed, incoherent, mildly amusing remake of John Carpenter’s more interesting, if still flawed 1980 film by the same name.
Questions abound. Why did this movie need to be remade? It isn’t John Carpenter’s best work, by far. It is a pretty tame story, and hardly revolutionary for the genre. And the premise, whilst interesting, barely holds enough material for one film, much less a “modern” remake. What could induce a studio to back this film? The answer, coming from the heart of Sony Studios, is best summed up as an “anti-Stealth mentality”, in which a studio with a string of misses throws a bone to a few genre faithfuls. Like myself, suckers for a good suspense or horror thriller. Neither describes The Fog, though it clearly tries hard to stand on its own feet and give viewers something worth watching. It even does a few things right. But on the whole, it seems to double under the weight of its own shaky roots and the lackluster studio that it’s trying to support.
The story is set in the quiet seaside town of Antonio Bay, Oregon, a town with a one hundred year history. Its anniversary celebration about to commence, a strangely thick fog envelops the town, and secrets hidden long ago about the town’s sordid beginning surface, putting all its inhabitants, and especially the heroes, in semi-desperate jeopardy. Tom Welling plays Nick Castle, a young ne’er-do-well skipper of the Seagrass, a charter fishing boat. He’s currently dating Elizabeth (Lost‘s Maggie Grace), but she’s been living in New York for the past six months, so he occasionally diddles the town radio DJ Stevie Wayne (MILFy Selma Blair) and generally tries to look as hot as he can whilst not being the hero of Smallville. Elizabeth comes back and discovers her mom still doesn’t like her, the town priest (Adrian Hough) is out getting drunk and painting the cemetery red with Persian words from the Bible, and a strange sea symbol keeps appearing and not getting explained.
That’s when the ghosts come in, courtesy of the titular fog. It kills, it dismembers, it deep fries! All in the name of revenge, which in the ghost world is next to godliness, because cleanliness clearly isn’t, as shown by their rotten, leprous skin. And the plot comes down to one thing–the town forefathers were naughty, and now the ghosts are coming back to tip the scales of justice in their favour by dispatching the less important characters and putting the main characters in peril.
Even more questions abound. Why do the ghosts decide to come back now? Why not fifty years ago, or even a year after they were killed? What about the guy whose skin turned leprous? Did he survive? What about his dogs? What’s with their MO? Some people they burn to death. Others they are content to throw them through plate glass windows. Others get hooked or their eyes gouged out. There’s no rhyme to their crime, and the director has no reason to show all this stuff.
With little to act to, the cast sort of sleepwalks their way through to the somewhat bewildering ending. The music by Graeme Revell is pretty nice, with more moody timpony and underscores of seaborne distress than musical JUMP! moments, which is a nice change from the usual fare. Effects are so-so, though some of the lighting is fairly good.
Like split pea soup, The Fog sometimes tastes good. But the bad gas is more than enough to keep most people away. Keep your nose closed until this Fog rolls away.
Fringe Rating: out of 5