The Fog is a 1980 American supernatural horror film directed and scored by John Carpenter, who co-wrote it with its producer Debra Hill. It stars Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Atkins, Janet Leigh and Hal Holbrook. It tells the story of a strange, glowing fog that sweeps over a small coastal town in Northern California.
Filmed in the spring of 1979, The Fog was scheduled to be released at Christmas that year by independent studio AVCO Embassy Pictures, but its release date was delayed to February 1, 1980. The film divided critics upon release, receiving praise for its visuals and acting, and criticism for its structure and screenplay. Despite mixed reviews, the film grossed $21.3 million domestically.
The Fog contains themes of revenge and repressed corrupt historical events resurfacing in contemporary small-town America. In the years since its original release, it has established a cult following. A remake was released in 2005.
Plot
On the eve of the centennial of the small coastal town of Antonio Bay in Northern California, old Mr. Machen tells ghost stories to children by a campfire on the beach. One story is about a clipper ship that crashed against the rocks nearby, causing all of its crew to drown after mistaking a campfire for a lighthouse while sailing through an unearthly fog. Machen finishes the story as midnight strikes and paranormal activity begins occurring around the town. Town priest, Father Patrick Malone, discovers his grandfather's diary when a stone spontaneously falls from a wall in the church, revealing a hidden cavity behind. The journal reveals that a century earlier, on April 21, 1880, the six founders of Antonio Bay, including Malone's grandfather, deliberately wrecked a clipper ship named the Elizabeth Dane, so that its wealthy, leprosy-afflicted owner, Blake, would not establish a leper colony nearby. The conspirators used the gold plundered from the ship to establish the town.
Meanwhile, out at sea, a strange, glowing fog envelops a fishermen's trawler. The fog brings with it the Elizabeth Dane, carrying the vengeful revenants of Blake and his crew, who kill the three fishermen. The following morning, local radio DJ Stevie Wayne is given a piece of driftwood by her son Andy, who found it on the beach. It is inscribed with the word "DANE". Stevie carries it to the lighthouse, where she broadcasts her radio show. As she is listening to music on a cassette, the driftwood begins to seep water. As the water touches her cassette player, a man's voice is inexplicably heard on the tape, vowing revenge, and the words "6 must die" appear on the wood before it bursts into flames. Stevie extinguishes the fire and sees that the wood once again reads "DANE" and the tape is playing normally.
Town resident Nick Castle and hitchhiker Elizabeth Solley find the lost fishing trawler adrift and the corpse of one of the fishermen. Later, while Elizabeth is in the autopsy room alone, the fisherman's corpse briefly comes to life and accosts her before collapsing. Nick and coroner Dr. Phibes see that the now lifeless corpse has carved the number "3" on the floor with a scalpel. That evening, as the town begins its celebrations, local weatherman Dan O'Bannon is killed by the revenants at the weather station. The fog has returned and starts moving inland, disrupting the town's telephone and power lines. Using a backup electric generator, Stevie begs her listeners to go to her house and save her son. The revenants kill her son's babysitter, but Nick and Elizabeth rescue Andy.
Stevie advises her listeners to head to the town's church, but then finds herself trapped and under siege by the revenants when the fog envelops her lighthouse. Seeking refuge inside the church, a group of townsfolk finds a large gold cross in the wall cavity, fashioned from the remaining stolen gold from the Elizabeth Dane, just as the fog begins to envelop the church and the revenants begin their attack. Malone understands that the revenants have returned to take six lives to match the six original conspirators, and feels guilty that his ancestor was one of them. He offers the gold and himself in exchange for sparing the others. Blake's revenant seizes the gold cross, and he and his crew disappear in a blinding flash of light as the fog miraculously vanishes. Stevie, now alone again at the lighthouse, warns her listeners that the fog could come again and instructs any ships that can hear her to keep an eye out for it.
After everyone leaves the church, Malone remains inside and wonders why he was spared, given that there were five deaths. The fog then reappears along with the revenants, and Blake decapitates Malone.
Cast
Themes and interpretations The Fogs central themes are revenge and the resurfacing of "repressed past events" in small-town America, as it focuses on the supernatural vengeance inflicted on the residents of a community that has prospered from looted salvage. William Fischer of Collider describes the film as one preoccupied with "an all-American town getting ready to celebrate its founding, a founding marred by a dark crime. When Father Patrick Malone discovers the horrible truth and brings it to the attention of Mayor Kathy Williams, she shrugs it off and dismisses any impact or introspection it might cast over the centennial. It was so long ago, she reasons, and what is there to do about it? And she has a point; there's no changing the past, and at a certain distance, there's no rectifying it."
Writer Peter Hutchings notes that, while the film contains these implicit themes, that Carpenter is "more interested in conjuring up a sinister atmosphere than he is in exploring some of the social ramifications of such a story".
Production Development The initial inspiration for The Fog came to Carpenter when he and his collaborator and then-girlfriend, Debra Hill, were promoting their film Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) in England; the two visited Stonehenge during the trip, where they witnessed an eerie fog rolling over the landscape from a distance. Carpenter stated that he drew additional inspiration for the story from the British film The Trollenberg Terror (1958), which dealt with monsters hiding in the clouds.
In the DVD audio commentary for the film, Carpenter noted that the story of the deliberate wreckage of a ship and its subsequent plundering was based on an actual event (the wrecking of the Frolic) that took place in the 19th century near Fort Bragg, California (this event was portrayed more directly in the 1975 Tom Laughlin film, The Master Gunfighter). The premise also bears strong resemblances to Massimo Pupillo's 1965 Terror-Creatures from the Grave as well as the John Greenleaf Whittier poem The Wreck of the Palatine which appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in 1867, about the wreck of the ship Princess Augusta in 1738, at Block Island, within Rhode Island.
Carpenter named characters in the screenplay after people with whom he had collaborated on previous projects. Among them are Dan O'Bannon, a screenwriter who worked with Carpenter on Dark Star (1974); Nick Castle, who portrayed Michael Myers in Halloween; Tommy Wallace, an editor, sound designer and art designer who worked on Dark Star and Assault on Precinct 13, as well as several other subsequent projects. The babysitter in the film, Mrs. Kobritz, is named after Richard Kobritz, who produced Carpenter's 1978 television film Someone's Watching Me!.
Other references that are interwoven into the film include the name of the John Houseman character "Mr. Machen" (a reference to Welsh horror fantasist Arthur Machen); a radio report that mentions Arkham Reef; and the town's coroner Dr. Phibes was named after the titular character of the horror films starring Vincent Price from the early 1970s.
The Fog was part of Carpenter's two-picture deal with AVCO Embassy Pictures, along with Escape from New York (1981).
Casting
Cast as the female lead was Adrienne Barbeau, Carpenter's wife, who had appeared in Carpenter's TV movie Someone's Watching Me! in 1978. This was her first feature film. Barbeau also appeared in Carpenter's next film, Escape from New York (1981).
Tom Atkins, a friend of Barbeau, was cast as Nick Castle. The Fog was Atkins' first appearance in a Carpenter film, and he also appeared in Carpenter's next film, Escape from New York (1981) as well as Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), which was produced and scored by Carpenter.
Jamie Lee Curtis, who was the main star of Carpenter's 1978 hit Halloween, appeared as Elizabeth. Commenting on the role and on appearing in another of Carpenter's films, she said: "That's what I love about John. He's letting me explore different aspects of myself. I'm spoiled rotten now. My next director is going to be almost a letdown." In a retrospective interview, Curtis stated that her part was written into the film by Carpenter, who felt sympathy for her after the success of Halloween had failed to lead to her obtaining other roles.
This was the first collaboration between Carpenter and character actor George Buck Flower, who would go on to appear in four more films directed by Carpenter: Escape from New York (1981), Starman (1984), They Live (1988) and Village of the Damned (1995).
Filming
Filming took place from April to May 1979 at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood, California (interior scenes) and on location at several other cities in California, including Point Reyes, Bolinas, Inverness, and the Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Sierra Madre. The original production budget was approximately $900,000.
The film was shot by cinematographer Dean Cundey, and Carpenter stated the appearance of the film was inspired by the Val Lewton-produced horror films I Walked with a Zombie (1943) and Isle of the Dead (1945), which he described as "very shadowy, all suggestion, and he has all sorts of melodrama going. I was a real fan of that sort of thing." Although a lower-budget independent film, Carpenter chose to shoot in the anamorphic 2.35:1 format to elevate its visual appearance.
Post-production After viewing a rough cut of the film, Carpenter was dissatisfied with the results. Recalling the experience, Carpenter commented: "It was terrible. I had a movie that didn't work, and I knew it in my heart".
Carpenter subsequently added the prologue with Mr. Machen (John Houseman) telling ghost stories to fascinated children by a campfire. The scene was filmed on a soundstage rather than on location. Houseman played a similar role in the opening of the 1981 film Ghost Story. Carpenter added several other new scenes and re-shot others in order to make the film more comprehensible, more frightening and gorier. Among the additions were the sequence in which Curtis's character is approached by a walking-dead corpse in the morgue, as well as the finale in which Barbeau's character ascends to the roof of the lighthouse to escape the mariner ghosts.
Carpenter and Debra Hill said the necessity of a re-shoot became especially clear to them after they realized that The Fog would have to compete with horror films that had higher gore content. Approximately one-third of the finished film is the additional footage completed during reshoots. The reshoots increased the film's budget from $900,000 to $1.1 million.
Music
Carpenter's musical score for The Fog features prominent synthesizer and elements of drone music, and was largely composed in the key of A minor. As the film progresses, its score shifts to the key of B major and features a flatter pitch. The score has been released on compact disc and vinyl in several different editions since the film's release.
Release Marketing