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John Carpenter's The Fog (1979)
Directed by John Carpenter. Screenplay by John Carpenter & Debra Hill. Starring Adrienne Barbeau, Hal Holbrook, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Atkins, Nancy Loomis, Janet Leigh.
89 minutes.
John Carpenter's followup to Halloween, The Fog opens in creepy good form with John Houseman telling a scary story to a bunch of kids around a campfire, giving us some background exposition while he's at it. The movie that follows is full of creepy atmosphere and some good sharp shocks.
I smoked two joints before watching this movie. I enjoyed it so much that the next night I smoked another two joints and watched it again. It was just as good; my stonage scrambled the movie in my head enough that I was still off balance and The Fog was still scary.
Then I watched it a third time without the benefit of drugs. Oops. Turns out The Fog is actually a pretty stupid movie.
But oh! That atmosphere! Oh! Those shocks! Oh! Adrienne Barbeau was a fox in those days!
The storyline involves seafaring ghosts returning to take their revenge on the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the town of Antonio Bay. Actually, there's not much more story than that, and what little there is isn't very good. But who cares? I didn't, and after a few bowls, you won't either.
The cast is pretty good on the whole, and work as an ensemble rather than with a clear-cut main character. Adrienne Barbeau, apart from being majorly sexy, is great as the gutsy radio dj. Hal Holbrook is superb as always as the drunken priest. Jamie Lee Curtis keeps her clothes on, but is otherwise good. Her mom, Janet Leigh, annoyed me though. Nancy Loomis is almost as sarcastic and funny as she was in Halloween. The rest of them are solid, but unmemorable.
Grab hold of a copy of MGM's testy recent DVD release of The Fog, select the Widescreen version - naturally, but particularly here, as Carpenter really uses the whole frame, smoke a few down, and enjoy.
I give it nine out of ten as a stoned experience.
© 2002 Joey Narcotic.