A pale remake of a 25-year-old horror film that wasn't all that memorable to begin with.
The Fog (2005)
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Reviews Counted:64
Fresh:3
Rotten:61
Average Rating:2.7/10
Consensus: The Fog is a so-so remake of a so-so movie, lacking scares, suspense or originality.
Theatrical Release:Oct 14, 2005 Wide
Box Office: $29,511,112
Synopsis: An island off the Oregon coast is the setting for this salty yarn of ghosts, lepers, betrayal, vengeance, and teen angst. A fog-enshrouded schooner from 1865 returns from the bottom of the sea to... An island off the Oregon coast is the setting for this salty yarn of ghosts, lepers, betrayal, vengeance, and teen angst. A fog-enshrouded schooner from 1865 returns from the bottom of the sea to wreak vengeance on the locals of the island, and it's up to local DJ Stevie Wayne (Selma Blair), her charter-boat-captain lover, Nick (Tom Welling, from TV's SMALLVILLE), and his wayward girlfriend, Elizabeth (Maggie Grace, from TV's LOST), to save the day. All three are related to the town's founding fathers, with whom the shipbound ghosts have an ancient score to settle. What that score is no one seems to know, but they need to find out, fast. DeRay Davis (BARBERSHOP) provides comic relief as Nick's lusty first mate, but the real scene stealer here is the fog itself, which is much more animated than in the 1980 John Carpenter original. Thanks to some nice CGI work, it slithers in, around, and under everything. Though gussied up with an angst-rock soundtrack and beautiful young TV actors, THE FOG is, at heart, a good old fashioned ghost story, replete with period costumes and inter-dimensional romance. Director Rupert Wainwright (STIGMATA) is good at capturing little details like the eerie tinkling of deep-sea fishing hooks hung out to dry, the textures of moisture-beaded shower stall doors, and the perfectly toned skin of lead actress Grace as she wanders around in her negligee. John Carpenter and his partner, Debra Hill--co-creators of the first FOG--served as producers. [More]
Starring: Tom Welling, Maggie Grace, Selma Blair, Kenneth Walsh
Starring: Tom Welling, Maggie Grace, Selma Blair, Kenneth Walsh
Director: Rupert Wainwright
Director: Rupert Wainwright
Screenwriter: John Carpenter, Cooper Layne
Producer: John Carpenter, David Foster, Debra Hill
Composer: Graeme Revell
Studio: Columbia Pictures
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Reviews for The Fog
Pale WB-style hunks and hotties and a 'funny' black guy whose sole purpose is to say words like 'dawg' confront a CGI mist that looks like it could be erased with a couple of mouse clicks.
The fog also does something genuinely eerie: It causes everyone in the cast to deliver dreadful performances and display inappropriate reactions when their friends are drowned, burned, stabbed or thrown into glass display cases.
So concerned is the film with contriving at least one gratuitous jump-fright every five minutes that elements like character and story soon become lost in the fog.
If you are a fan of the original film, this remake might interest you. It's not badly made. But why was it made at all?
This Fog lacks the one thing the original had -- originality -- but it qualifies as more than a mist opportunity.
A dull, stupid, boring picture, inferior in every way to the John Carpenter film it remakes, but it's bad for the same reason a lot of effects-driven movies are bad.
Like watching a cut-rate Roger Corman rip-off of a big Hollywood film, only the tables are ironically turned. The big budget studio version seems pale in comparison.
a plot that has been reworked into something resembling crudely made hash
That John Carpenter, credited here as a producer, had a hand in diminishing his own legacy would be tragic if any of this mattered.
Yes, there’s “something in ‘The Fog,’” all right. Another weekend of low box office proceeds and more dismal reviews for yet another unnecessary, poorly made remake.
Who knows? Maybe if we ignore these pointless remakes enough, pretty soon they’ll all go away.
It attempts to apply too much logic to the events going on that it distracts the viewer from pleasure and replaces it with boredom.
"We gotta go!" Poor Nick (Tom Welling) says this a few too many times in The Fog.
We're meant to be unsettled by digital spectres, reckless Mack trucks, and rotting old pirates who look every bit as terrifying as the guy on the Fisherman's Friend cold-lozenge box.
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