The Fog (1980)

The Fog is the 7th John Carpenter film that i've seen and it certainly won't be the last as i've yet to see a bad film from Carpenter and he even made one of my favorite movies (Escape From New York).

The Centenary of the small sea town, Antonio Bay, is approaching. While the townsfolk prepare to celebrate, the victims of the crime that founded the town rise from the sea to claim retribution. Under cover of the fog, they carry out their vicious attacks, searching for what is rightly theirs.

Once again the usual Carpenter features in The Fog. Adrienne Barbeau (Escape From New York), Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween), Tom Atkins (Escape From New York), Charles Cyphers (Halloween), Darwin Joston (Assault on Precinct 13) and I even thought that I saw Donald Pleasence as the ghost-storyteller but it turned out that it wasn't him after all. They all do well (although never great) and the best probably was Adrienne Barbeau. Another notable thing is that Jamie Lee Curtis for once isn't the good virgin but this time is a somewhat wilder hitchhiker. She even fucks the first guy who picks her up although he could have been her dad or even her grandad.

The film's plot actually is a simple ghost story and i'm quite surprised that Disney haven't made some kind of attraction just like they did with for example Pirates of the Caribbean. The fog moving above the water and landscape creates brings some very decent atmosphere (Along with the great soundtrack of Carpenter). And that's not the only thing the fog brings... In the fog there are dozens of zombies/ghosts who bring some really good tension. The ghost are mainly shown only mysteriously and are never shown full-screen and that's part of the power of the movie. They stay mysterious and that way are pretty scary.

The Fog surely isn't Carpenters best but still is a very cool atmospheric movie with some great tension. You gotta love Carpenter!