MAY 10 - The Fog

            

            A grizzled old man sitting by a campfire tells a spooky story to a circle of rapt kids. A hundred years ago, on a foggy night, a ship mistook a campfire for the lighthouse and crashed against the rocks. There were no survivors. Legend has it that, when the fog returns, so will those unfortunate sailors.

            Do you need anything more than that?

            John Carpenter and Debra Hill’s The Fog is campfire ghost story energy perfectly distilled and transferred to celluloid, a spooky rainy treat perfect for watching on a gloomy night under a layer of blankets. The best parts of Halloween are the moments where it feels like an urban legend, Laurie peeking into the Meyer’s house and kids whispering about the boogieman. That vibe pervades this whole movie, like a ghost story in a dusty old book. The gorgeous shots of the seaside town, Antonio Bay, and the eerie glowing blue fog are atmospheric and delicious.

            Rather than closely following a hero or two, The Fog has a broader scope. In the film’s opening, we follow the ghostly activity that begins to disturb Antonio Bay when the clock strikes midnight more than we follow any one figure. The characters don’t have elaborate backstories or deep emotional motivations, but they never feel too thin or generic – no, they’re all quite lovely to spend time with. There’s Father Malone, a boozy priest who discovers the town’s dark secret, and Kathy Williams, an exhausting town organizer with a zest for local history, portrayed by horror legend Janet Leigh. Her daughter is here too, the great Jamie Lee Curtis, a horny hitchhiker who rolls into town at exactly the wrong time, while Adrienne Barbeau appears as Stevie Wayne, a sultry DJ and radio station owner who becomes the information hub as the ghostly going-on escalate. She has a kid who strikes a good balance for a horror movie kid, neither too cute nor too cloying. It’s a heck of a cast, and the strong performances make up for the little time the movie spends on characterization.

            I wish she was my mom...

           Everything about The Fog feels classic. As a timeworn story of ill-gotten gains and revenge, an awful past that won’t go away, it does what ghost stories do best. The sailors are a spooky bunch, glowing red eyes, hooked hands – great urban legend stuff. Leather-bound diaries, planks of ship wood, and other antique ephemera provide the movie’s clues. The Fog was hyped by Gaylords of Darkness, one of my fave podcasts, as a perfect Halloween night movie – something spooky but fun, well-executed, almost gentle. It didn’t disappoint.

 Jamie Lee and her new beau contemplate the mysteries of the sea

Vibecheck: A warm cup of tea, a soft blanket, a crackling fire, and the tinny drum of rain outside.

Scare Factor: This is not a bloodless ghost story, but if it isn’t clear, I found its brand of scariness rather comforting.

Pairs Well With: It has the same sort of Gothic throwback feel as films like The Others, Crimson Peak, and The Lighthouse. I do kinda wish this, like Halloween, jump-started a whole horror moment of spooky ghost stories with a strong sense of place. Oh, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is completely different tonally, but also spends a lot of time in a radio station and features a badass DJ which, as someone who spent a lot of late nights at my college radio station, I have a personal appreciation for.

But how gay is it?: Jamie Lee Curtis has powerful bi energy in this movie and you cannot tell me otherwise.

Girlfriend’s Corner: Ughhhhh I’m so sad I didn’t watch this movie! As you may have figured out by now, my attraction to horror cinema is less about being scared and more about how horror as a genre is so good at understanding the importance of atmosphere and art design, and this movie seems like it has a frankly unfair amount of atmospheric dread to it. Also, The Sea as a place of horror is something I find both genuinely unsettling and wonderfully hokey, so I would’ve enjoyed that!

Anyway, I have a full-time job and was at work :( please send me $4000 USD (wire transfer or cashier’s check) so that I can quit my job and watch cool atmospheric horror movies with my girlfriend whom I love!!