The fog
Year of release : 2005
Run time : 1h43m
Genre : Supernatural Horror
Cast : Selma Blair, Maggie Grace, Tom Welling
The movie is a remake of John Carpenter’s 1980 movie of the same name.
In Antonio Island, Oregon, the residents are preparing to honour their founding fathers on the 134th anniversary of the town. They even built them a statue, which apparently was built wrong, as they each have to hold something based on their skills, and they are holding the wrong items.
While out, on a boating trip with customers, Nick and his friend,Spooner, almost sink the ship as the anchor got stuck in something at the bottom of the sea. Finally getting out, the anchor releases the remains of a shipwreck which slowly surfaces on the shore.
Nick’s girlfriend moved to New York ,where she’s been for the past 6 months, and his friend is worried he moved on with someone else.
That very evening, a strange, dense fog, starts taking over the town, coming from the sea. A local man finds an old pocket watch washed out on the shore.
While driving out of town, Nick sees a woman walking by the side of the road, and stops to pick her up, and realizes it’s his estranged girlfriend, Elizabeth.
The old man who found the pocked watch on the beach tells Elizabeth she used to be Elizabeth, and if she touches it things will change. The moment she does, the watch starts ticking.
At the same time, in the museum, the bell from the shipwreck Elizabeth Dane starts ringing.
The fog passes through Spooner’s boat while he’s partying with friends, and k1lls them except for Spooner, who, when found in the freezer, is thought by the police to be the k1ller.
Nick takes Elizabeth home, but her mother is not happy to see her, as she says she’s not running a hotel !( I guess she didn’t have enough room in the huge house!) . Nick takes her to his place, and at night, she has dreams about people dying in a fire on the sea.
She wakes up looking for the symbols in her dream, which don’t seem to exist, and sees footsteps on the ceiling (!) and hears loud knocks. These loud knocks are heard by all the people who are haunted by whatever is in the fog.
Elizabeth goes to the library, doing research, and finds out from the librarian, there was a leprosy outbreak and people stopped living on certain parts of the island and never came back.
Stevie, the local radio host, almost has her radio studio burnt down, after a supernatural encounter, with loud knockings and screams, a hair brush her son found on the beach, catching fire, and when she put the fire out, the burnt places had the pair of scales symbol on it. She calls her son telling him to stay away from the beach, and the next thing he does as he hangs up, is go to the beach.
That time, he sees the old man who gave the watch he found to Elizabeth find a long anchor of sorts, and as he kept on walking further into the waves, the fog k1lls him, and runs back home.
That evening, at nightfall, the fog comes from the sea, creeping into people’s houses, burning them!
I personally enjoyed the movie, but the revenge story made no sense, as the ghosts got their vengeance on people who did nothing to them. I don’t care if they are the descendants of the 4 people who wronged them, these people of today had no idea what was done to them, they are not responsible of their ancestors’ actions. Due to that, it took me out of it.
SPOILERS It seems the founding fathers were naughty, and built the city with stolen money, by k1lling the people in question in one of the worst ways, from the Elizabeth Dane vessel.
The loud knocks are the knocks the founding fathers used to get on the Elizabeth Dane vessel.
I liked the reveal at the end, with Elizabeth, although, if you pay attention to the past scenes on the vessel you’re not gonna be taken by surprise.
The acting was good.
I liked the soundtrack.
The visual effects were good.
The movie received negative reviews from critics (with a 4% critics’ review based on 68 critics on Rotten Tomatoes, unlike the original which has a score in the 70%), and grossed 46.2 million dollars, against a budget of 18 million.
The movie was bestowed 2 awards for Worst Film (from the Fangoria Chainsaw Awards) and Least Scary Horror Movie (from the Stinkers Bad Movie Awards).
If you want to watch the movie, you can find it on Dailymotion.
Rating : Worth a watch !