The Foggy Fog

Ought2bCommitted

Ought2bCommitted

Veteran
I admit I am a big horror fan and love a lot of John Carpenter's work. I was psyched and worried about a remake of The Fog, because the original is not without its flaws, but still a really good movie. I was hoping (silly me) that they would expand the areas that needed expanding and maybe do some cooler effects with the fog itself (silly me) than Carpenter did with a small budget 20 years ago.

This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. For a horror movie there is no suspense and no shocks, jumps, or horror anywhere to be found.

The movie opens with a thud setting its tone. Nothing can top the orginal's openining with John Houseman telling the ghost story, and these guys didn't even try.

The script is not even a passable first draft in quality. It is atrocious. Embarrassingly bad. I wrote a better sequel to the fog when I was 7. There are so many holes, so many things that don't make sense, and things that just aren't explained--and need to be! This 90 minute snoozer felt like the super duper triple expanded cut of Return of the King.

I can't even say how bad the acting was. Tom Welling does his best not to embarrass himself as does Selma Blair, but the chick from Lost proves again she can't act to save her life and fits right in with the rest of the cast. Saddddd....

Even if you are a horror fan or Carpenter fan, save your dough. Watch the original. Don't waste your time. Not worth seeing anywhere at any time.

-Robert

There IS something in The Fog....a big pile of smelly doggie doo doo.
 
THanks for the review O2bC

At first glance I welcomed this; and then I heard who was in it:

Superboy as Nick Castle:

I knew it was doomed right there.
 
I knew the Fog would suck, but you know what? I will still netflix it in 6 months just to see how bad. In hollywood you're only as good as your last remake.

I was telling my BF the other day when I saw the Fog commercial, watch and see: some a**hole will try and remake Halloween, IMO the holy grail of american horror films. Its happened to all the other greats:

Dracula
Frankenstein
Night of the Living Dead
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Psycho (Gus Van Sant- rot in hell you MF) :happy:
 
Edweirdo said:
I knew the Fog would suck, but you know what? I will still netflix it in 6 months just to see how bad. In hollywood you're only as good as your last remake.

I was telling my BF the other day when I saw the Fog commercial, watch and see: some a**hole will try and remake Halloween, IMO the holy grail of american horror films. Its happened to all the other greats:

Dracula
Frankenstein
Night of the Living Dead
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Psycho (Gus Van Sant- rot in hell you MF) :happy:
Click to expand...

Hollywood is indeed lacking in orignal ideas; the MTV generation has struck the studio system.

I liked Copollas Dracula, and the remake for NIGHT and TEXAs; but the other two sucked.
 
Edweirdo said:
watch and see: some a**hole will try and remake Halloween, IMO the holy grail of american horror films.
Click to expand...

I agree. It's funny that you mention this, because it's recently been talked about. Since the Weinsteins split from Disney and took Dimension with them, they were talking about how they still retain the rights to a possible remake of Halloween. It would be a monumental mistake, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it in the near future.
 
Yeah every couple of years there's a slight murmur of remaking "Halloween". There's not much to gain from "reimaging" that because it's not really in need of anything else. What they'd probably do is make Loomis 35 with washboard abs, make Sheriff Brackett 45 with washboard abs (and both he and Loomis will go topless at lest 5 times a piece), and cast a bunch of gaggling girls who were on a tv show once or twice to star in it (and not go topless once a piece), add a lot of gore or blood effects, and probably only use JC's score for the closing credits! Bad idea.

Of all the horror movies ripe for repicking or modernizing, and there are some that would benefit from better effects or retouching the story, this is NOT one of them. Besides which the franchise isn't even dead yet...past its prime, but not dead.

-Robert
 
Ya know, its not even that The Fog was awful...it was just how awful it was. Seriously, the script was dreadful. It amazed me that it got greenlighted, and you can assume the script went through a lot of revision before makingit to the screen. I shudder to think how awful the original script was when people are uttering lines like,"Don't be talking about my father-we're from Chicago" in the final draft.

Sometimes remakes are good for bringing new ideas to the original or expanding it or showing it differently.

And sometimes they just prove how good the original was. That is the case here.

Hell, even House of Wax with Paris Hilton was better than this!

-Robert
 
I liked Coppola's Dracula, but Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves came dangerously close to ruining it for me. They were the weakest links and brought the film down substantially.

I enjoyed Texas...loved the cinematography on that one... and Dawn was cool...some great moments and good ideas...

Psycho was basically the same movie in color with different actors. Still effective because Hitchcock was a genius, but why do the exact same thing again? if you can't bring some new ideas to it, then that should tell you not to bother.

Night was eh. Forgettable.

Frankenstein had some great visuals, but the self indulgent Kenneth Brannagh had one too many close ups of his shirtless torso for my tastes.

Up next are The Hitcher (hardly a masterpiece, and hardly worth revisiting) and When A Stranger Calls (hardly a masterpiece and hardly worth revisiting since going into it we all will know the killer is calling from upstairs in the house).

Argh....

At least it gives me hope that my ideas and screenplays are better written. Now just getting them read....

-Robert
 
I always found it convenenient her beingbusted for grand theft and not ever really getting in trouble for it. In fact; she's still being hired for work.

Must be nice to be a celebrity. I guess if OJ can get away with double homicide.
 
Definitely the worst film out in a while. What really aggrevated me were several quite noticable continuity errors and some really crappy est. shots of CG fog (which looked completely fake) put in at random places for no reason. I wish I could get some of my ideas produced, probably more interesting and creative than most hollywood films these days.
 
Well, you know how I always have something to like about every movie I go see? I am a changed woman. This movie was terrible. I cant even go into it, because I think its pretty much been covered.

Awful. But maybe they stayed within budget and wrapped on time, I could like that about the movie. But not the movie itself.

Sad.
 
thartley said:
Well, you know how I always have something to like about every movie I go see? I am a changed woman. This movie was terrible. I cant even go into it, because I think its pretty much been covered.

Awful. But maybe they stayed within budget and wrapped on time, I could like that about the movie. But not the movie itself.

Sad.
Click to expand...

Yup. Pretty much how I felt. Amazing, right???

Amazing to see what Carpenter did with next to no money.

-Robert :lipsrseal
 
Good point. That was the Carpenter MOJO. Taking small budgets and making fims that had something:

Dark Star
Assault on Precinct 13
Halloween
The Fog
Escape From New York
The Thing <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< My favorite of his films
Starman
Christine
Big Trouble in Little China

...and then at this point it starts to do a swan dive......into..........

The last 20 years of crap he's done; I suppose I didn't hate Invisible Man or They Live and even Ghosts of Mars as a kind of B Vibe going for it but John Carpenter just seems to have never matured as a filmmaker. Vampires felt like it was made inthe 80's and Escape From L.A. was just embarrassing to sit though
 
John, that's so funny because after rewatching JC's The Fog, I IMBDed him and was like...huh, BTILC is the last really good JC movie (although I liked They Live, but not a masterpiece by any stretch).

I think my biggest problem with him at this point is the subject he picks. The scripts are just awful... Prince of Darkness had great atmosphere. So did Village of the Damned and In The Mouth of Madness had some great suspenseful moments...all lacked from subpar scripts.

My fav. Carpenter films have always ironically been the ones where he wrote and directed. The early JC-Debra Hill films are by far his best...

I just wish JC would get back to basics.

-Robert
 
I was going to see this film but at work Sat night i read the review in The Toronto Star and they said basically it SUCKED and poor dialog as well .
 
arielman said:
I was going to see this film but at work Sat night i read the review in The Toronto Star and they said basically it SUCKED and poor dialog as well .
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Oh I thought the dialogue was great... how can you go wrong with lines like,"Leave my father out of it! We're from Chicago!". :thumbsup:

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

-Robert
 
This was classic...I found this today...
I’ve had more fun watching C-SPAN at 4 in the morning than watching this limp remake of John Carpenter’s most frightening film. The original The Fog was a brilliant exercise in sustained tension. It was a true campfire horror story, all about mood and atmosphere. This remake removes the tension, extinguishes the mood and garbles the originals simple, straightforward story so badly that it’s literally laugh-out-loud bad.

:shocked:
LOL. Yup that about summed it up!!! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
 
Unfortunately this could have been a good film, but it really did turn out bad. I was hoping for a lot better considering.
 
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