Overview
I'm watching the Fog. It is a 2005 remake of the John Carpenter classic. This is a good example of refactoring a story, retaining the original premise, but expanding on it. Ghosts are coming back from the dead (100 years later) to wreak revenge on the descendants of those who wronged them. All the primary elements are there, such as the fog [duh], the pieces of [stuff] washing up on the beach, the cover-up from 100 years ago, and the radio announcer (and her kid). Yet, they give a different slant to some of the elements and I think, except on one point, the story is very much improved.
The original movie told the backstory via a journal. In this rendition they give a little more realism to the backstory by revealing it through [100 year] flashbacks as the movie progresses. The journal is still there, but just it illustrates itself wherever possible.
My one problem with the movie is the premise. In the original, I seem to remember that "6 must die" and the movie ends when the last one falls. In this remake, all descendants are targeted, but the ghosts leave before extracting full revenge. They elaborated a bit on the story of the ghosts. The heroine actually takes the place of a dead girl [presumably the wife of the captain]. It was a nice touch, but they left it hanging there. We're never sure quite why Clark (Kent from the Smallville TV show) is left standing, even though he was on the "revenge' list.
Style
This remake does a real good job of improving on the original. The original cut of the classic used Fog as the villain, and just didn't work. They re-shot a bunch of scenes and added more characters in the fog and a few gruesome close ups. In this rendition they were able to make the fog scary. The shapes and ghosts in the fog are downplayed until the end of the movie, where they play a big part. The filmmakers did a great job of slowly rising to a huge crescendo.
Buy
posted by Jeffry Houser in
Personal, Movie Reviews
| 0 Comments
