Hooptober Neun (2022) - Film #29

I’m fairly deep into the Carpenter filmography so far, and I’ve been pretty positive about the majority of his movies. The same applies to The Fog, although this is a notch below Christine and Prince of Darkness for me.

One thing that Carpenter excels at is mood, and The Fog has buckets of it, with Carpenter’s work ably supported with Dean Cundey’s masterful cinematography. The music is classic Carpenter - shades of the Halloween theme, and those stripped back drones that he loved to employ.

The villains, if we can call them that, are deployed effectively and look great. The story itself is a classic ghost story, backed up with reasonable lore. There’s some strong acting here too, and Adrienne Barbeau particularly impressed.

So, where does this falter? As much as I love Tom Adkins and Jamie Lee Curtis, I wasn’t really sure why their characters needed to be in the movie, and their subplot seems irrelevant by the end of the movie. There are some pacing issues too, and there’s a decent wait for the film to really get going.

A great looking piece of movie-making, with a typically strong score. Regardless of the few issues with it, this is a solid Carpenter outing and fully worth the watch.