Review of Fog, The (Special Edition)

Introduction

Weather can be pretty frightening sometimes; thunder and lightning have been traditionally associated with spookiness, and violent phenomena like hurricanes and tornadoes can certainly terrify. Still nothing can be so eerie as a cloying fog, heavy, silent, laden with stillness and worst of all, moist. I`ve even experienced a moment of sheer terror in the thickest of pea-soupers. During an early morning drive through town, a thick fog had fallen, with visibility down to only a few metres. Ever safety conscious, I was keeping my speed down to give me as much time to anticipate other traffic, not that I really needed to, as I seemed to be the only one dumb enough to be driving in such conditions. As I drove through Camden, all was silent except the heater whirring in my car, and I peered myopically through the mist. All of a sudden, I saw a pair of honking great headlights coming straight at me. I jerked the wheel and came to a halt atop the pavement and glimpsed a van go past. It was then I realised that I was going the wrong way down a one-way street, an underwear-changing situation if ever there was one. I guess what I`m trying to say is that any scary movie about fog will have to be pretty scary to top that experience.

John Carpenter`s The Fog is a ghost story in the classic sense. Antonio Bay is a town that`s been built on blood. The town`s 100th anniversary is nigh, and the local priest discovers a journal that warns of perilous events to come. As the fog rolls in, strange things start to happen, windows shatter, and clocks break, and appliances start going haywire. The same night, the trawler Seagrass goes missing with all hands. This is just the start of a nightmare as the fog is destined to return the next night, and the only people who can do anything about it are town resident Nick Castle and the hitchhiker he picked up, Elizabeth Solley, as well as the town`s resident DJ, Stevie Wayne who broadcasting from a cliff top lighthouse can only watch as the fog inundates the town.

Video

The picture on this Special Edition release of The Fog is something of a curious thing. By and large, the image is very clear and sharp. It`s been cleaned up to a degree and the only print damage I saw was a thin black vertical line that appeared briefly in the final third of the film. There is some grain certainly, but the image looks stupendous with the seaside location making a vivid impression, the choppy ocean comes across with perfect clarity.

That is until the fog rolls in. It`s certainly ironic that in a film where the fog is the whole point, any scene in the fog is vague to the point of murkiness. The particulate nature of the fog, combined with the grain just isn`t handled well by this transfer and the resulting artefacts result in a low resolution image that looks out of place when compared to the rest of the film.

Audio

There is a wide range of soundtracks with the film. You can choose from remixed DD 5.1 English and German tracks, DD 2.0 Italian and Spanish, or DD 1.0 English and German.

I watched the film with the 5.1 track and sampled the 1.0 for comparison. The 5.1 remix is certainly effective in providing an immersive experience. The music and effects are placed well, though it is still pretty front-focused. The dialogue is clear throughout, but I couldn`t help but feel that the effects were over cooked a tad. One scene where her son wakes Stevie has frogs croaking in the background, and while the dialogue is perfectly clear, I was distracted by just how ambient the frogs were. Fortunately the original mono track is there for purists, though I wonder why it wasn`t split across the front speakers in a 2.0 track. There are many, many subtitle tracks.

Features

It wouldn`t be a Special Edition if it weren`t on two discs, although apparently this release isn`t that different from the single disc Region 1 edition.

Both discs have nicely animated eerie menu screens.

Disc One contains a commentary from John Carpenter and Debra Hill. It`s a good informative commentary that relates the making of the film. It does get kind of technical at times and there is an element of stating the obvious, but both speakers are intelligent and voluble. Presented in DD 1.0 it is subtitled in German, Italian and Spanish.

Disc 2 contains the rest of the extras on a single layer disc.

Most prominent is the documentary Tales From The Mist. This lasts 28 minutes and is presented in 4:3 with DD 2.0 sound. This features contributions from cast and crew made recently, as well as some archive footage. It`s a sort of retrospective making of, with discussions of how Carpenter and Hill were building on the success of Halloween, the inspiration for the film, the casting and the requirement for re-shoots.

The original 1980 documentary is also here, although some of the archive interviews are excerpted for the previous documentary as well. This lasts 8 minutes.

There is a brief (1½ minutes) storyboard to film comparison.

There are 4 minutes of goofs and outtakes presented in the letterbox format.

There are 6 trailers. One is the theatrical trailer, two are teaser trailers and there are three TV spots. All are presented in the appropriate aspect ratio.

Finally there is a photo gallery containing 78 images taken behind the scenes.

It should be noted that all the extras are subtitled, but only in German, Italian and Spanish.

Conclusion

The first time I saw the Fog, it was late Halloween night. Everyone else was asleep, the trick or treaters were all safely tucked up in bed and the streets were empty. The mood was absolutely perfect for a horror movie, and The Fog hit all the right notes, by measure chilling, claustrophobic and with shocks that had me jumping out of my skin. There`s something about watching a horror movie on Halloween night that feels vaguely larcenous, as if you are tempting fate. Watching the same film in the second week of October could conceivably be a completely different experience.

On the bright side, The Fog is still the slowly building, atmospheric thriller that I first saw a few years back. However in the cold light of, well late last night, the flaws in the story became apparent. It is at its heart, a classic ghost story. A hundred years previously, a horrible crime was committed by the townspeople against a leper colony, and like all restless spirits since the days of yore, the ghosts of the lepers are looking for vengeance. They return as promised cloaked in the ethereal, supernatural fog. The story for the most part is told in the classic way, although the change in audience expectations prompted some re-shoots for added slasher moments and a smidgen of gore. The build up is slow, concentrating on establishing character and mood. There is an early poltergeist moment that visits the town and heralds the horror that is yet to come, and when the fog does appear, it does so with an intent and malice that is palpable.

The cast is great, especially Hal Holbrook as Father Malone, the priest who uncovers the secret of the curse that is about to befall Antonio Bay. There are plenty of strong female characters. Jamie Lee Curtis plays the hitchhiker Elizabeth Solley who gets picked up by Tom Atkins` Nick Castle, and hitches her way into a nightmare. Her mother, the late Janet Leigh plays Kathy Williams, a prominent townsperson who is insistent on continuing the celebrations of the town`s anniversary despite the approaching terror. Finally there is Adrienne Barbeau as disc jockey Stevie Wayne. Ironically it`s her character that dates the film the most. Hers is the kind of soft talking sultry late night DJ that was a signature of seventies radio. I kept expecting a male caller to phone in and ask for `Misty`

Her character is also problematic in that while the performance is excellent, her presence is a little contrived. She keeps an eye on the weather as part of her radio show, so it`s understandable that she knows that the fog is behaving oddly, but her initial terror seems groundless. Plot holes like this are merely a distraction though, from the chills and shocks that the film provides. The film is thoroughly enjoyable up until the denouement and the big reveal of the ghosts, who as in most films like this serve as a poor climax after all that anticipation.

The Fog is still a serviceable chiller, although like many Special Editions, this release doesn`t live up to the billing. There is enough here to satisfy though, and it`s perfect viewing material for Halloween night.