s the sleepy fishing village of Antonio Bay, Calif., prepares to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its founding, everything seems peaceful. But a dark secret has been hidden in the waters off Spivey Point. The founders the town plans to honor actually brought a curse down on Antonio Bay by luring an approaching ship onto the rocks and drowning all aboard. For a century, the dead have waited patiently for revenge. A mysterious fog rolls in from the sea, just as it did that night, and looming shapes emerge from the mist, bringing sudden, violent death.
A scattered collection of Antonio Bay residents comes upon different pieces of the puzzle. Local fisherman Nick (Tom Atkins) and his hitchhiking girlfriend Elizabeth (Curtis) discover the first victims after the fog overwhelms a fishing boat at sea. Father Malone (Holbrook) discovers the confession of his grandfather, one of the six who a century ago made the fateful decision that now must be paid for. Local leader Kathy Williams (Leigh) just wants to hold things together long enough to pull off the centennial celebration.
It's Stevie Wayne (Barbeau), who runs the town's radio station from within a lighthouse perched on the cliffs over Spivey Point, who leads a lonely battle to protect Antonio Bay. From her perch, she can see the fog rolling over the town. And, when the town's power is taken out, the station's generator makes her the only means of communication. Stevie's information over the radio is what allows the others to evade the fog long enough to regroup and figure out what to do. But when the fog begins rolling down the approach to the lighthouse, Stevie has nowhere to run.
The followup to John Carpenter's breakout hit Halloween, The Fog was released in 1979 with generally disappointing results. It was by no means a financial loss, but brought in less than half the box office that the less expensive Halloween had the year before.
This special-edition DVD of The Fog comes on a double-sided disc with the original 2.35:1 widescreen version on one side and a pan-and-scan version on the other. It features a commentary track with Carpenter and producer Debra Hill, a storyboard-to-film comparison, outtakes and trailers, along with a pair of documentary features on the making of the film.
A plot that gets a little murky in places
This disc's supplementary materials would have us believe that, ever since failing to make much of an impact in 1979, The Fog has gradually snowballed into a cult classic of the horror genre. Well, maybe.
The Fog certainly has its good points, such as Dean Cundey's excellent cinematography and lighting work (unless you're watching the claustrophobic pan-and-scan version, which pretty much wastes his efforts). The windswept northern California locations are gorgeous, especially that fantastic lighthouse. And John Houseman proves he can tell a crackerjack of a campfire ghost story in an opening cameo that sets up the backstory of the shipwreck.
But overall, The Fog comes off as disjointed. Part of the reason is in its original construction. The ensemble cast is divided into small groups, each following their own threads separately from the others. Until the climax, when most of the cast gathers in the sanctuary of the town church, many of the characters remain completely unaware of each other.
However, the main reason is what happened after The Fog was shot. In editing, it was decided that the film just wasn't scary enough and, in the age of gory slasher films (like, say, Halloween) it wasn't graphic enough.
What followed, as Carpenter explains on the mostly well-done commentary track, was a furious effort to fix the film in the month before it was released. Carpenter and crew shot new footage, altering the story and making the ghosts both more obvious and more violent. What had been a moody, ethereal ghost story became more of a slasher/monster movie. Some parts of the story no longer added up, and there are several bits thrown in not because they make any sense in the movie's context, but just to be scary.
The end result isn't a bad movie—and we don't have the original cut with which to compare it, so second-guessing Carpenter is a little rude. But, while the film may be underrated, it certainly doesn't rise to the level of the string of innovative hits Carpenter would embark on with his next project, Escape from New York.
For viewers who don't mind The Fog's flaws, though, the presentation on this special-edition DVD is good. Alongside the commentary track, the two documentaries are also high points. One was done at the time, while the second was newly shot for this disc. The two make a very interesting comparison.
