Jamie Lee Curtis, "the scream queen", hasn't been seen on the big screen for some time.  She will always hold a special place in my heart as the scared young girl that built her career off of those classic scenes that involved her running away from masked men that carried extremely large kitchen knives.  The last half hour of the original Halloween holds some of the best sequences in slasher film history.  It's no wonder John Carpenter was itching to work with Curtis again for his 1980 film The Fog.  Written and directed by Carpenter himself, The Fog is a classic tale of vengeful spirits that's perfect for fans of old school ghostly horror.

The greatest thing about The Fog is that it’s not a story that’s set in a haunted establishment.  It's not a tale of wrongful death to which the ghost of a child seeks out the living to help make what was once wrong now right.   Nah…it's freakin GHOST PIRATES BABY!  Well, actually they are ghost lepers who have come back from their watery graves to seek revenge on a small harbor town off the coast of northern California.  It seems that 100 years prior, a group of men set sail to reach the shore of the small town with a large amount of gold on board.  The money was to be spent on housing settlements back when the town was first being developed by devoted colonists.  The town's people didn’t want this group of lepers to ever reach the shore, so on a foggy night when the ship was scheduled to reach the harbor, a group of town's men on the main land purposely guided the ship into a dangerous section of rocks so that the ship would sink along with its undesired crew members.  The gold was then retrieved from the shipwreck and distributed throughout the town's establishments.  One hundred years after the murderous plot, the ghostly crew members return to the harbor to seek revenge on the entire town.  Coincidentally, the spirits have also brought with them the mysterious fog that had added to there eventual doom only a century prior.  It seems that the fog is controlled by the spirits who travel within its mists.   Therefore, if you see the fog, you will soon see the ghosts and from there it will be too late to run.  These ghost lepers (should have been pirates!) have a thirst for bloody revenge and John Carpenter can still deliver his own special blend of creepy atmosphere to heighten such a grizzly story. 

Now, The Fog will not scare you shitless.  The suspense that's created in the film reminds me a lot of Carpenter's other tension building techniques that can be found in both his films Halloween and Christine.  Characters are always found to be upheld with a sense of mystery as they hear suspicious noises and insist on further inspecting such ghostly encounters.  But as the fog rolls further into the mainland, the suspense also thickens.  The ending result is a small bunch of people running to a nearby church..and no..they aren't chased by some maniac with a large knife.  They are chased by a thick cloud of fog.  It’s only moderately scary, but really, the film is just at heart a lightly seasoned horror flick that runs with the same style as the original Halloween.  It's meant to be more mysterious and creepy then a constant nail-biter.  It's what I've come to discover with most of John Carpenter's films.  They all leave you with a sense of wonder due to creepy night time atmospheres and slow to build scenes of tension.  Some aspects of his films might come across as a little silly, but more so, it all just adds to the charm of his many achievements.  The Fog is really no different.

What's also really wicked cool about the film is its unique take on the use of narration.  Our narrator is actually one of our main characters played by Adrienne Barbeau, and let me tell you all now that she has thee sexiest radio voice I've ever heard.  Throughout a good chunk of the film she keeps the oldies spinning and the increasingly severe weather reports updated.  Later on in the film, she is too a potential victim of the vengeful spirits along with Jamie Lee Curtis (Elizabeth).  Both actresses, along with Janet Leigh and actor John Houseman, give reasonable performances throughout the entire film, but really it's Jamie and Adrienne that are the true screaming stars of the feature. 

I recommend this film to fans of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, and a select few installments to the Friday the 13th series.  Once and awhile you can find it on cable television as it can be shown in almost its entire unedited format.  Not too much blood is shed throughout the film and a lot of the gore is meant to be drawn through audience interpretation.  John Carpenter has never been too much of a gore hound in his earlier works and I wouldn’t really have it any other way.  He’s a master of creating horror films that anyone can sit down and watch and have a delightful time with.  The Fog is dark, creepy, and mysterious but ultimately, it’s just meant to be a fun flick to watch with friends who like a good ghost story.  I wish John would pop into action a little bit more these days.  American horror is in dire need of another filmmaker that can match his technique and charm.  The Fog is a good example of this.