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In small coastal town Antonio Bay weird things begin
happening just in time for its 100-year anniversary.
People are found dead in mysterious ways and a strange
fog is closing in on the town. As the local priest,
Father Malone, finds an old, hidden diary he discovers
that the people who lived in the town 100 years ago
were responsible for killing and stealing from a ship,
and now it seems like the ship's crew has returned
for revenge...
John Carpenter's first film after Halloween is a fine
follow-up in the same kind of mood. This is a creepy
ghost story balancing stalker scenes in the sense of
Halloween. Carpenter doesn't waste time and early on
gives us some small scares, creating a feeling that
something is wrong and something scary is about to happen...
The premise is pretty silly and the plot kind of dumb,
but like Carpenter's fellow horror king Tobe Hooper,
he puts his mind and energy on the horror instead of
the story. It's the way he handles the plot and
delivering suspense that's his films signature. The film
doesn't always make sense and it's clear that Carpenter
prefers scares rather than logic.
When it comes to acting, this one has a bunch of nice
80s horror stars, including Adrienne Barbeau as a
radio-DJ, Hal Holbrook as Father Malone, Janet Leigh
as a woman in charge of the anniversiry party and
Tom Atkins. It also reunites three actors from
Halloween: Nancy Loomis, Charles Cyphers and Jamie Lee
Curtis. The latter one is pretty fun as a sexy
hitchhiker, in comparison to her shy, geeky Halloween
heroine. She also sports the fun line: "Bad things seems
to happen to me", a fun reference to Halloween.
The film's great scene-stealers though are Barbeau
and Leigh. Barbeau is a great, sympathetic
heroine, the sort who's a single mom and working
the night shift alone at her own radio station.
She's also the main character of the entire film,
watching the horror closing in on the town and
can only warn people through her radio channel. Leigh
(Curtis' real-life mom and also the famous shower
victim in Psycho) seems to have a good time returning
to the horror genre and is rather amusing as a
neurotic old lady.
The film though is way too short (Carpenter actually
had to add the opening sequence to the film after it
was discovered that the running-time was too short for
cinema release) and Carpenter doesn't have enough
spectacular ideas to built up the whole film. A lot of
time is spent on the eerie, gloving fog closing in on
the town but when it's content is revealed it's sort
of a disappointment, like the out-of-nowhere climax.
There are some good, suspenseful scenes, scares and
shocks to keep up the pace though and Barbeau
makes us care for her and the other characters thanks
to her natural, believable performance. Highlight has
her realizing the fog is rolling towards the
lighthouse where she works and she's forced to climb
up the roof, while the fog closes in... A good 80s
horror flick, no Halloween, but still a John Carpenter
and better than many other films in the
same kind of genre.
Not very explicit, this is more violent than gory.
There's a good murder scene in the beginning of the
film with three fishermen brutally dispatched in
front of each other. The rest of the killings
are performed off-screen or barely seen in the fog
but look for the zombie makeup (complete with some
nasty gross-out worms) on the roof with Adrienne Barbeau.
John Carpenter scored this one too, just like
Halloween and it tells. Eerie piano tinkling later
moves on to darker and darker music as the fog
closes in. Effective and good, and not too close
to the Halloween score.
Not for gore fans or hardcore horror, but for
anyone who's into spooky ghost stories combined with
stalker flicks a la Carpenter's own Halloween.
This is also for those who like Carpenter's
early work, and 80s horror films in particular.
A good, scary film.
Review
By: Slicer-dicer
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