Product Description

The FOG brings with it the souls of the dammed. Fog is nothing new to the quaint seaside village of Antonio Bay. But on the night of its 100th anniversary, a fogbank rolls in unlike any other. Eerie lights, dark figures, and the masts of an ancient schooner appear in the swirling mists, and soon the specters of long-murdered sailors descend upon the town. Using knife, hook and sword, they exact revenge for sins committed by the town's founding fathers, leaving horrified survivors struggling to solve a hundred-year crime. And they must solve it - or die. Starring Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Houseman, Janet Leigh and Hal Holbrook. John Carpenter's THE FOG is classic horror at its terrifying best.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8440 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-10-04
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Original recording remastered, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 90 minutes

Amazon.com
Horror master John Carpenter offers up a triple treat with The Fog: Jamie Lee Curtis, Adrienne Barbeau, and Janet Leigh all in the same movie. As if that weren't enough, both John Houseman and Hal Holbrook make appearances, each clearly enjoying the novelty of being in a horror flick. The Fog opens just before the centennial celebration of the seaside town of Antonio Bay. Then the witching hour strikes, glowing fog rolls in, and all hell breaks loose. Carpenter wrote the script with producer Debra Hill, his collaborator on Halloween, and the two know their craft. It's a creepy story and a tight script, and, as in their previous effort, the audience gets to know the main characters a bit before they're put in danger. The movie also has a sly sense of humor: "Things seem to happen to me," says slasher vet Jamie Lee. "I'm bad luck." Barbeau is also obviously having a great time, sinking her teeth into her role as a frightened disc jockey watching the fog roll in from a lighthouse. The Fog offers a few shocks and plenty of good old-fashioned clammy chills. You'll never look at weather systems the same way again. --Ali Davis

Customer Reviews

Polite zombies always knock first
I've never seen The Fog except in snippets on television. My wife, on the other hand, saw it at a Girl Scout movie night, which is either a cruel trick or a hilarious joke, depending on you perspective. Certainly, the movie scared the heck out of the poor girls watching it and my wife remembers it vividly.

Anyway, this gave the movie something of a reputation at our house that made it required viewing. With the release of the awful remake, I decided it was time for me to bone up on a little chunk of cinema history by John Carpenter, master of action horror.

The movie is essentially a ghost story: settlers of a coastal town led a ship full of lepers to their deaths, stole their gold, and went on to prosper. On the eve of the hundred-year celebration, six souls will be claimed in vengeance.

There are several protagonists in this film: Stevie Wayne (the smoky-voiced Adrienne Barbeau) the radio DJ, Kathy Williams (Janet Leigh) as the mayor, Elizabeth Solley (Jamie Lee Curtis) the loose hitchhiker, and Father Malone (Hal Holbrook) as the boozy priest. Malone discovers a diary that details the pending doom about to befall the town. Wayne, who runs her radio station from a lighthouse, is uniquely positioned to use the power of 80s technology to track the fog. Williams frets over the loss of her husband at sea and bravely leads the candlelight vigil on the eve of the ceremony despite the town losing power. And finally Solley...well Solley sleeps around and gets scared a lot.

The Fog is hardly perfect. It's obvious Curtis' character exists as a box office draw. She has nothing to do but tag along. There's at least one scene where the fog looks like a kid's chalk drawing being dragged across a piece of celluloid. And viewed abstractly, there's something hilarious about zombies dressed in pirate garb who are polite enough to knock on the door rather than breaking into your house with outstretched hands, Romero-style.

And yet The Fog is one scary movie. John Carpenter's score, while reminiscent of Halloween, is scary in its own right. Wayne's helplessness and terror, as she shifts from sultry on-air voice to a mother terrified for her son, is palpable. And the glowing fog, when the special effects are up to snuff, is truly terrifying. Carpenter knows when to show his zombies and when not to show them, and it's a credit to his nascent (at the time) moviemaking skills that even when the zombies show up, they're scary enough that the glowing red eyes of the lead zombie burn in your memory long after the movie has faded.

There are also a variety of nods to Lovecraft throughout the film, including Machen, Whateley, and Arkham, which just goes to show that Carpenter actually knew his horror roots. The special features are illuminating as well, explaining the moviemaking process Carpenter went through as well as the reshoots. I'm pleased to report the movie is better for it.

Years later, when my wife saw this movie, she was still creeped out by it. But she's comforted by the knowledge that when the zombies come in the fog...at least they'll knock first.

John Carpenter's Sophomore movie - THE FOG
For me they could have done more with this movie.
Coming off the success of "HALLOWEEN" this movie
lacked a good storyline.
It's kinda like the fog came from no where and then
returned to no where.
Until the end of the movie do you understand why
dead people were coming out of the fog & killing
people.
If your just getting into watching some of John Carpenter's
movies check out some of his other movies this one isn't recommended.
I rate this movie a 6 from 1to10!!

An underrated classic!!
When this movie was released in theaters in 1979/1980, it was considered to be "John Carpenter's worst mistake", but today, it is considered as a total horror classic !

I don't know what people where thinking back in the 80's when they said this movie was terrible, I mean, from the first moment I saw it, I totally liked it and it scared the hell out of me !

I was something about 7 or 8 years old when I first saw it, it scared me a lot, but let me tell you right now I'm 19, almost 20, and it still scares me so much, you never get bored of watching it, specially if it is in a cold, rainy weather at night, besides, the atmosphere of this movie is so great, it has that carpenter's style of horror from Halloween, Halloween 2, and possibly Halloween 3.
Go ahead and watch "The fog" ! !

Greetings!