John Carpenter’s The Fog

Directed by John Carpenter, John Carpenter’s The Fog follows a handful of characters, including Jamie Lee Curtis’ Elizabeth and Tom Atkins’ Nick, as they’re forced to fend for their lives after a deadly fog rolls into their small coastal town. It’s perhaps not surprising to discover that John Carpenter’s The Fog‘s greatest asset is its perpetually compelling visual sensibility, as filmmaker Carpenter, along with cinematography Dean Cundey, does a superb job of establishing and sustaining an often irresistibly ominous atmosphere that’s heightened by an early emphasis on spooky happenings – with the promising vibe heightened by the efforts of an eclectic cast that includes Charles Cyphers, Hal Holbrook, and Janet Leigh. (And it doesn’t hurt, either, that Carpenter delivers as memorable and distinctive a score as one might’ve anticipated.) It’s somewhat disappointing to note, then, that John Carpenter’s The Fog progresses into a rather hit-and-miss midsection that ultimately highlights the narrative’s less-than-substantial nature, and there’s little doubt, as well, that the excessively deliberate pace contributes heavily to the picture’s progressively arms-length feel – which does, in the end, cement the movie’s place as a sporadically arresting yet lamentably uninvolving horror effort from Carpenter.

**1/2 out of ****