The Fog ««
PG-13, 100m. 2005
Cast & Credits: Tom Welling (Nick Castle), Maggie Grace (Elizabeth Williams), Selma Blair (Stevie Wayne), DeRay Davis (Spooner), Kenneth Welsh (Tom Malone), Adrian Hough (Father Malone), Sara Botsford (Kathy Williams), Cole Heppell (Andy Wayne), Mary Black (Aunt Connie), Jonathon Young (Dan the Weatherman). Columbia Pictures presents a film directed by Rupert Wainright. Screenplay by Cooper Layne based on the 1980 screenplay by John Carpenter and Debra Hill.
It is getting to the point when it comes to Hollywood remaking old films that I no longer see the new versions as "curiosity pieces" the way I once did. When director Steven Soderbergh (Erin Brockovich - 1999) teamed up with George Clooney to remake Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack movie Ocean's Eleven back in 2001 for example, I was not only interested in seeing what the filmmakers would do with the update. I also hoped they would somehow pay tribute to the original in the form of cameos by surviving members of the first film. It has been done before as with Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) when Kevin McCarthy, who starred in the original, made a cameo appearance being chased by aliens.
These days when I browse such websites as www.comingsoon.net for the latest information on movies, I cringe every time I see some headline that says so-so is being remade for the big screen. Instead of seeing them as "curiosity pieces", I now ask myself "why is Hollywood redoing this again?" If director Gus Van Sant proved anything with his 1998 remake of the Alfred Hitchcock horror classic, Psycho, it is that you simply cannot go back and improve what was already flawless to begin with.
Then again, not everyone thought director John Carpenter's The Fog (1980), which starred movie veterans Adrienne Barbeau, Hal Holbrook, Tom Atkins, John Houseman and the mother and daughter scream queen team Janet Leigh and Jamie Lee Curtis to be a "classic." The film about a California fishing community being terrorized by the spirits of dead sailors bent on revenge on the eve of the city's 100-year-old-anniversary, was not embraced by most critics when it came out 25 years ago. One problem some reviewers had with the story was with the modus operandi of the ghosts themselves. Critics wondered whether or not the ghosts were after certain individuals or if they were after everyone in the town who was dumb enough to get out of bed and answer the door at midnight.
Carpenter, who produces this remake, even admits in this month's Starlog magazine that shooting the original was not "the most favorite experience" of his career.
"Making The Fog was difficult'; we had to go back and fix it once we shot it," he was quoted saying. "My philosophy is that this is a new director's film. It isn't my movie anymore. I made my Fog back then, when I was young and happy."
"If everybody is redoing old films and they want to pay to remake an old movie of mine, why not," Carpenter said. "It's a good idea."
Too bad I don't share his sentiment. At least his version was suspenseful and hauntingly clever, despite the fact the plot was inspired by The Trollenberg Terror, a film Carpenter saw back in the 1950s as a kid.
If there is any reason why The Fog was remade, it is because like this year's The Amityville Horror and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) before it, it is so the filmmakers cannot so much improve on the original story as they can on the visual effects. Why else would studios choose to remake The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Omen (1976), and King Kong (1933) all of which are headed to the big screen between now and next summer. This is a Fog for a young audience who stupidly think great horror movies are those inundated with a lot of elaborate special effects and where studios are only too happy to oblige.
Unlike Carpenter's unique vision, this new Fog is nothing more than special effects eye candy. "The Fog" itself, which again, has ghosts of dead sailors coming back for revenge on the town's inhabitants, is not so much of a threatening menace as it is a nuisance. I don't know about you. If I was, however, awakened at midnight by someone banging on my door to the point it sounds like they are trying to break it down, chances are I am either going to spew out a good number of obscenities or I am going to call 911.
Instead of an ominous slow moving green glow like we saw in the original, this "Fog" rolls in to the shores of Oregon's Antonio Island at a fast pace like a looming sandstorm where the only way to get away from it is by heading into a tent. Or by jumping on a plane and flying directly above it, which from the air, looks like cloud cover or dense smoke generated from forest fires.
This "Fog" even makes a growling noise of sorts. Or maybe it is just the sound effects while the scares, if you even call it that come in the forms of victims either being turned into rotting corpses or bursting into flames. When are today's filmmakers going to learn that the way to send chills up one's spine is not through a deluge of visual effects and loud noises but by creating a deadly quiet atmosphere where things go bump in the night when you least expect them? Hence the reason the original still stands out.
The only difference between this version and Carpenter's is there is more to the story this time about how the dead sailors met their fate, their connection to going after their prey, and even incorporating the idea of reincarnation. You will notice, dear reader, though that I have not said a single thing about the new cast which includes Tom Welling (Smallville), Maggie Grace (ABC's Lost) and Hellboy's Selma Blair who takes over Adrienne Barbeau's role as the town's only radio light house disk jockey Stevie Wayne. That's because they are barely worth mentioning at all. They are just pale imitations of the characters from the first film.
The most memorable line comes during the climax when one of the characters tells the others he has nothing to do with the town's curse as he is from another state.
"Leave my forefathers out of this. I'm from Chicago. Southside."
The only other difference between this Fog and the original is the technology the characters have access to. They are able to use digital camcorders to record the ghosts' terror spree. While Blair's Wayne can now talk to the town's only weatherman visually via computer much to her dismay.
I understood how she felt when she says, "Someone beam me out of here."
Midway through, I felt like saying the same thing. Except my reason did not so much have to do with the technology as it had to do with the regret I just wasted more than an hour of time sitting inside a dark theater and either wanted two hours of my life back or maybe even a refund.
©11/2/05
PG-13, 100m. 2005
Cast & Credits: Tom Welling (Nick Castle), Maggie Grace (Elizabeth Williams), Selma Blair (Stevie Wayne), DeRay Davis (Spooner), Kenneth Welsh (Tom Malone), Adrian Hough (Father Malone), Sara Botsford (Kathy Williams), Cole Heppell (Andy Wayne), Mary Black (Aunt Connie), Jonathon Young (Dan the Weatherman). Columbia Pictures presents a film directed by Rupert Wainright. Screenplay by Cooper Layne based on the 1980 screenplay by John Carpenter and Debra Hill.
These days when I browse such websites as www.comingsoon.net for the latest information on movies, I cringe every time I see some headline that says so-so is being remade for the big screen. Instead of seeing them as "curiosity pieces", I now ask myself "why is Hollywood redoing this again?" If director Gus Van Sant proved anything with his 1998 remake of the Alfred Hitchcock horror classic, Psycho, it is that you simply cannot go back and improve what was already flawless to begin with.
Then again, not everyone thought director John Carpenter's The Fog (1980), which starred movie veterans Adrienne Barbeau, Hal Holbrook, Tom Atkins, John Houseman and the mother and daughter scream queen team Janet Leigh and Jamie Lee Curtis to be a "classic." The film about a California fishing community being terrorized by the spirits of dead sailors bent on revenge on the eve of the city's 100-year-old-anniversary, was not embraced by most critics when it came out 25 years ago. One problem some reviewers had with the story was with the modus operandi of the ghosts themselves. Critics wondered whether or not the ghosts were after certain individuals or if they were after everyone in the town who was dumb enough to get out of bed and answer the door at midnight.
Carpenter, who produces this remake, even admits in this month's Starlog magazine that shooting the original was not "the most favorite experience" of his career.
"Making The Fog was difficult'; we had to go back and fix it once we shot it," he was quoted saying. "My philosophy is that this is a new director's film. It isn't my movie anymore. I made my Fog back then, when I was young and happy."
"If everybody is redoing old films and they want to pay to remake an old movie of mine, why not," Carpenter said. "It's a good idea."
Too bad I don't share his sentiment. At least his version was suspenseful and hauntingly clever, despite the fact the plot was inspired by The Trollenberg Terror, a film Carpenter saw back in the 1950s as a kid.
If there is any reason why The Fog was remade, it is because like this year's The Amityville Horror and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) before it, it is so the filmmakers cannot so much improve on the original story as they can on the visual effects. Why else would studios choose to remake The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Omen (1976), and King Kong (1933) all of which are headed to the big screen between now and next summer. This is a Fog for a young audience who stupidly think great horror movies are those inundated with a lot of elaborate special effects and where studios are only too happy to oblige.
Unlike Carpenter's unique vision, this new Fog is nothing more than special effects eye candy. "The Fog" itself, which again, has ghosts of dead sailors coming back for revenge on the town's inhabitants, is not so much of a threatening menace as it is a nuisance. I don't know about you. If I was, however, awakened at midnight by someone banging on my door to the point it sounds like they are trying to break it down, chances are I am either going to spew out a good number of obscenities or I am going to call 911.
Instead of an ominous slow moving green glow like we saw in the original, this "Fog" rolls in to the shores of Oregon's Antonio Island at a fast pace like a looming sandstorm where the only way to get away from it is by heading into a tent. Or by jumping on a plane and flying directly above it, which from the air, looks like cloud cover or dense smoke generated from forest fires.
This "Fog" even makes a growling noise of sorts. Or maybe it is just the sound effects while the scares, if you even call it that come in the forms of victims either being turned into rotting corpses or bursting into flames. When are today's filmmakers going to learn that the way to send chills up one's spine is not through a deluge of visual effects and loud noises but by creating a deadly quiet atmosphere where things go bump in the night when you least expect them? Hence the reason the original still stands out.
The only difference between this version and Carpenter's is there is more to the story this time about how the dead sailors met their fate, their connection to going after their prey, and even incorporating the idea of reincarnation. You will notice, dear reader, though that I have not said a single thing about the new cast which includes Tom Welling (Smallville), Maggie Grace (ABC's Lost) and Hellboy's Selma Blair who takes over Adrienne Barbeau's role as the town's only radio light house disk jockey Stevie Wayne. That's because they are barely worth mentioning at all. They are just pale imitations of the characters from the first film.
The most memorable line comes during the climax when one of the characters tells the others he has nothing to do with the town's curse as he is from another state.
"Leave my forefathers out of this. I'm from Chicago. Southside."
The only other difference between this Fog and the original is the technology the characters have access to. They are able to use digital camcorders to record the ghosts' terror spree. While Blair's Wayne can now talk to the town's only weatherman visually via computer much to her dismay.
I understood how she felt when she says, "Someone beam me out of here."
Midway through, I felt like saying the same thing. Except my reason did not so much have to do with the technology as it had to do with the regret I just wasted more than an hour of time sitting inside a dark theater and either wanted two hours of my life back or maybe even a refund.
©11/2/05
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