The Fog

In John Carpenter’s The Fog, the town of Antonio Bay is about to celebrate its centennial anniversary.  Around midnight, a group of children listen to the story of a doomed ship, the Elizabeth Dane, that sparked the town’s establishment.  Father Malone (Hal Holbrook) finds an old journal, detailing a conspiracy by perpetrated by the town’s founders.  A young woman hitchhikes into town.  Windows break, cars honk and all sorts of objects start moving on their own all around Antonio Bay.  The local late night DJ broadcasts, looking out over the water from the lighthouse.  And she watches a mysterious, glowing fog roll in.

Fog is perfect tool for horror.  It’s physical, yet has a mysterious quality that naturally intrigues us.  It obscures the most normal places enough to make it suddenly seem spooky. Fog hides people, the good and the wicked.  It hides them from finding each other, letting those lost in the element become easy prey.  And it just looks great.

This fog, this beautiful glowing fog, brings something with it.  It brings the some ghoulish form of the dead sailors from the Elizabeth Dane into town, looking for revenge.  Shrouded by the fog, we feel like the ghosts within are very physically real.  They murder and do physical damage.  We never get an unobscured look at these undead, even without the fog, and that’s probably a good thing.  Horror is almost always better maintained when there is some mystery to the monster.

The terror is nothing without a great cast to hold it up.  Here we have Adrienne Barbeau as the DJ, reporting the whereabouts of the fog, and what’s happening to the entire town like a narrator trying to keep her cool, and sometimes losing it.  There is her son, Andy (Ty MItchell), a loveable innocent kid who happens to be in the middle of it all.  Then there is Nick (Tom Atkins) the truck driver and his hitchhiking new lover Elizabeth (Jamie Lee Curtis) who come to the boy’s aid.  And finally, Father Malone seems to understand what the vengeful ghouls want, and may the only person who can stop them.

I believe that The Fog is a wonderful and underrated horror movie.  Visually, it looks great and intriguing, which is quiet an accomplishment for an 80s film.  The story is simple, with a broad range of characters to hold it up and fill it out.  Best of all, the moments of horror are not campy of left to flimsy looking effects, they work and are enjoyably scary.  There are even a few classic jump moments that turn and become more than a classic jump moment.  The Fog is fun for any horror fan and a true modern classic.

“The celebration tonight is a travesty.  We’re honoring murderers.”

Halloween

The first time I watched Halloween in its unedited entirety, I was about thirteen and babysitting my siblings.  Yes, perfect.  This was the late 90s, and the early days of parental passwords blocking television programs.  My technology-deficient dad needed my help to set the password, so I knew how to watch anything I wanted.  While my brother was excited to see the original slasher film, I remember my sister protesting, saying it was too scary and she’d tell on me.  Oh, please.  Like any smart oldest child, I asserted my dominance and threatened some sort of blackmail I had been saving on her.  Victory was mine that night, and we were all sufficiently scared that runaway maniacs could be roaming around the neighborhood.

John Carpenter’s Halloween from 1978 focuses on a small suburban town, its escaped manic’s return home after fifteen years, and a few teenage babysitters.  Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) is the bookish sitter, covering for her friends while they run off to fool around with their boyfriends.  She is also the more observant and skittish, noticing the eerie presence following the girls all day.  While Michael stalks the girls and moves in closer, his doctor (Donald Pleasence) is trying to find him, before it’s too late.

The film establishes the legend of Michael Myers perfectly.  It opens with a first person look at the murder from six year old Michael’s vantage point.  It’s perfectly creepy and brutal and seems to lack a soul.  In the present, the Myers house looks old, spooky and abandoned.  Local kids say it’s haunted and dare each other to go in on Halloween night.  That moment when a kid runs into Michael outside the school, we don’t know if there is a recognition, but he runs like he had just seen the boogeyman he was just talking about.

One of my favorite scenes is just a small moment towards the end, so please, if you have not seen Halloween, skip to the next paragraph, major spoilers!  I remember perfectly the first time my sister saw this moment, when Laurie thought she had killed Michael upstairs.  She tells the kids to run to a neighbor’s house to call the police and sits in the doorway crying and collecting herself.  Suddenly, we see Michael sit up behind her!  On cue, my sister and I proceeded to freak out, desperately trying to warn Laurie of the danger behind her.

In my opinion, Halloween is the best slasher film out there.  The situation is perfect; teenage babysitters with their guard down in their safe town and a manic is stalking them.  We love to see Michael stalk, biding his time building his eerie presence and our anticipation at the same time.  Our innocent characters are powerless against Michael’s brute, murderous insanity and we love to watch and wait for them to fall.  Enough suspense and fear is established to warrant the brutal and gory images of Michael’s murders.  Whenever I hear music from the film, the back of my neck feels prickly, bringing instant fear and recognition.  Most frightening of all, the film feels very real, like any late night alone in a quiet neighborhood could end screaming and becoming Michael’s next victim.  Happy Halloween!

“Boogeyman is coming!”