"The Fog"
Reviewed by Chris Cappola
Starring Tom Welling, Maggie Grace and Selma Blair. Directed by Rupert Wainwright. (2005, Columbia/Revolution)

This is the latest horror classic to get a big-screen makeover for today's audiences and coming off the strongly made 'The Amityville Horror' and 'House of Wax', there is a high benchmark for these films. Disappointingly, 'The Fog' doesn't follow on from those films and while it's a technically polished film with good production values and it does a great job at setting the atmosphere, there is a hollow emptiness and it never is able to execute the idea efficiently or effectively.

Like the original, 'The Fog' is set on a small coastal town, Antonio Bay in Oregon, a picturesque little town about to celebrate the anniversary of their founding fathers. But evil lurks in the form of a thick fog approaching town blanking the town and bringing ghostly avengers into the action. Surrounded amongst the impending doom are: local charter boat captain Nick Castle (Tom Welling from "Smallville"), his girlfriend Elizabeth Williams (Maggie Grace from "Lost") who has just returned to town and local DJ Stevie Wayne (Selma Blair) who works from a lighthouse turned radio station. A selection of smaller characters like Stevie's son, her aunt, the local mayor, a wise-cracking African American friend, a historian, the town priest and a local drunk are there to be potential and obvious victims to the carnage about to be reckoned on the town.

A lot of the plot developments from the script revolves around convenience and good timing. The characters embark on discoveries at about the right time. Elizabeth comes across as the local 'Buffy' of the town investigating the mystery and discovering everything so easily with the help of a historian centre and of course, the good old internet and she does so with such immense ease and of course keeping in line with the genre, nobody believes her until its too late. If the script doesn't go by convenient plotting then it goes by atmospheric convenience. How many radio stations would be incorporated into a large lighthouse? Sure, it looks as pretty as a picture but it's not realistic.

Directed by Rupert Wainwright, the remake is a polished film with some good production values. In the last 25 years, technology has come a long way for 'The Fog' to be a better-directed film than the John Carpenter remake but at times, it seems the director is way too preoccupied with the look of the film and forgoes any attempt to make a credible story. It's a good looking film and the setting of the island, actually filmed in Vancouver, Canada is quite nice but good production doesn't make a necessarily good film. Wainwright last helmed 1999's 'Stigmata', the film with Patricia Arquette fighting satanic demons. That film was over-shot and a very loud, pointless exercise and sometimes, it feels the feeling is the same here. 'The Fog' can't be seen as much of a horror movie because there are no real scare moments and the death scenes are not very interesting and weirdly, some are done off-camera, which may have been a contractual fulfilment to get a PG-rating in the US. A horror film with a PG-rating is not a "real" horror film - it's disguised as one. Audiences main focus in a film like this is on the death scenes - none really work on any level and none are surprising, every death is right on track with the blueprint.

The original 1980 pic directed by John Carpenter is far from a classic but it had some good ideas. Similarly, this remake too has some good ideas and some good scares but a lot of it is nice to look at but has no real purpose. The whole "explanation" ending that puts together the whole movie into perspective with its neat little twist is too obvious and the ending is abrupt. 'The Fog' could have worked like 2002's 'Ghost Ship', which played with a similar theme and although that film was far from a masterpiece, it knew what kind of movie it was whereas 'The Fog' is hoping to be a slasher picture but without any gore or excitement.

The three leads don't get away with very convincing performances though none are to blame - they are miscast. Tom Welling from TV's 'Smallville' does his best as the hunky, heroic lead but he as a rugged boat charter guide? Don't think so. He also has to remain dumbfounded for most of the film defending everyone else and really doesn't get any breakout moments. Maggie Grace from TV's 'Lost' tries hard but she comes across as a 'Buffy' meets 'Veronica Mars' and her character is just a little too convenient and clever for her own good. Selma Blair as a single mother with a young boy? Again, didn't think that worked and it doesn't but she tries to put some life into the film though really can't. The rest of the cast are standard cardboard cut-outs of cliché, stereotype roles. Weirdly too, there is absolutely no chemistry between Welling and Grace as a couple and they would have better off playing brother and sister instead.

While 'The Fog' is technically a better looking picture than the original, it doesn't do anything better. Now, we have had two attempts at this idea and neither have worked. It's a good idea but both times the director doesn't know how to use 'The Fog' as a menacing villain to the story. Horror films used to be the butt of the movie industry but have come a long way to being better films and from 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' to 'The Amityville Horror' remakes, they have done a good job in bringing timeless classics to new, younger audiences but 'The Fog' isn't too convincing in doing that and comes across as yet another standard horror run-of-the-mill waste.
out of 10
- Chris Cappola's Reviews

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