The Fog Year: 2005 Director: Rupert Wainwright Written by: Cooper Layne Threat: Ghosts Weapon of Choice: Fire Based upon: movie - The Fog - John Carpenter IMDb page:

Other movies in this series:
None

The tyranist's thoughts
I don't remember being overly impressed with the original version of this movie. Certainly not enough to think that it warranted a remake, but since the rage these days is to remake any movie not nailed down or currently in franchise hell, here it is.
So there's a small town with several beautiful young people in it. The fog rolls in, but it is evil. People die. Is it just a bad location, or does the town have some history that has earned it this private hell?
I'm not really that fond of the movie's main stars (and didn't even know who the one that Rish kept infatuating over was--Maggie who?). But I do like Selma Blair. A lot. She's no Jamie Lee Curtis, nor was she meant to be in this one, but I like her and wish the movie had been about her character rather than the other girl.
There was no reason to remake this. I don't think that the effects are all that much better or that the bizarre story twist the came up with warrants a retelling. Really, it just seems like they couldn't come up with anything else to make and Halloween is still a sort of active franchise so why not make this one?
Rish did actually get me to the theatre to see this one, for which I'm grateful. I saw astonishingly few movies in the theatre this year and I can't imagine this one being all that good on the TV. I wouldn't really recommend it. Unless you like Selma Blair, then you might as well see it. Just don't expect it to be quite the movie you might wish it to be. On the other hand, it got a tremendous number of Skulls, and sometimes those are worth seeing just because they are so bad.
Posted: January 19, 2006

Rish Reviews
While it has its followers, I've never really been a fan of John Carpenter's 1980 ghost story, The Fog. As far as I went, the only thing that made it special was its unforgettable tagline. It took a glossy, special effects-laden 2005 remake to make me fully appreciate it.
Now The Fog 1980 is clever, spooky, original, and fun, simply in comparison. The remake is none of those things. What it is is slick. And the cast are really, really attractive. Maggie Grace going out her front porch to investigate creepy sounds in her underwear ALMOST makes this a movie I can recommend. But the story, while more fleshed out and explained (not to mention logical), is less satisfying, and far less mysterious. The characters, though perfectly-formed and blemish-free, are not as likeable or alive. And the fog itself, while now animate enough to actually BE a character, is no longer scary. CG fog is just lame, my friends.
This isn't the worst film I've ever seen, and it's certainly not the worst remake ever (that award will eternally go to Psycho 1998), but it's typical of the remake culture we're in the middle of right now.
The point of remaking these semi-classic films is . . . what? Just to make money, right? And I guess they do that.
But in days past (I feel like stroking my long white beard when I say this), movies were remade only if something new could be brought to the table--if it was in black & white before, now do it in color (Dracula and Frankenstein had this happen to them, to no ill effect); if the effects were primitive or nonexistent, why not show off the new procedures (like in The Fly); if the original did not adhere to the source material (you could say The Thing fits into that category), if there was no budget the first time around, now go all out (The Mummy comes to mind); if it was goreless before, now add some nifty splatter (The Blob, for instance); or if someone had a new twist or perspective on the old material (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, perhaps), let's do a remake.
But in the 21st Century, we're seeing a tidal wave of remakes like the world has never before witnessed. And they're not just Japanese films being remade in English (which I can at least condone and understand). It's just a quick buck to be made, with very little innovation, heart, or creativity there. The young people who go to movies have probably never seen the originals, even though films and media are more accessable now than ever before in the history of motion pictures . . . filmmakers know that. And these producers aren't out to create something lasting and enduring, something that will be seen in the same light as these originals twenty or twenty-five years down the line. They don't care if they themselves are around then, do they? Just as big an opening weekend as possible, and then on to DVD. With Evil Dead, The Fly, The Wicker Man, Day of the Dead, and The Hills Have Eyes, all being remade in the next year or so, and When A Stranger Calls 2006 coming out in just a few days, my point will be driven home all the more.
Sadly, I'm still going to go to or rent every single one of these movies, if only to complain about them and declare the originals infinity superior. As my smartest college professor used to tell us, however, it doesn't matter what you say . . . you vote with your dollar.
Posted: January 24, 2006

Total Skulls: 36

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?