Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #16 July 2015 | Page 48

Cinema Obscura - The Overlooked Gems of Cinema
The Fog (1980) John Carpenter’s Campfire
Story
ByJeff Durkin

“11:55, almost midnight. Enough time for one more
story. One more story before 12:00, just to keep us
warm.” - Mr Machen (John Houseman)
After the success of Halloween (1978) John Carpenter
turned to another subgenre of horror, the ghost story.
From its opening with John Houseman telling a group
of children a scary story around a campfire, it is clear
that Carpenter is interested in creating a mythic tale.
While the film has flaws, mostly having to do with
plot holes and shallow characterisation, he largely
succeeds.
“The celebration tonight is a travesty. We’re honouring murderers.” - Father Malone (Hal Holbrook)
It is the eve of the 100th anniversary of the founding
of Antonio Bay, California. The town is a tiny fishing
community that hides a terrible secret. 100 years ago,
6 town elders lured a ship, the Elizabeth Dane, full
of lepers - rich lepers - to their doom on the rocks in
Antonio Bay. Now, the ghosts of the dead are back,
looking for vengeance and moving with a preternatural fog-bank. Led by the spectre of their leader, Blake,
the ghosts are not discriminating. They’re looking for

a body count, not justice. As the dead bodies stack up,
a motley collection of protagonists (including Jamie
Lee Curtis, Tom Atkins, Janet Leigh, Nancy Loomis,
and Hal Holbrook) find themselves barricaded in a
church, while DJ Stevie Wayne (Adrienne Barbeau)
is besieged in her lighthouse/radio station. Will any of
them survive The Fog?
“Something that one lives with like an albatross round
the neck. No, more like a millstone. A plumbing stone,
by God! Damn them all!”- Blake (Rob Bottin)
The weak plot of The Fog creates most of the film’s
problems. Events take place without much explanation and characters act without well-defined motivations. The ‘rules’ the ghosts follow change based on
the demands of the scene. Sometimes, they seem to
be incapable of entering a home without having the
front door opened for them. In other scenes, they have
no problem battering their way in, or even appearing
inside a building. The ghosts are fixated on the protagonists, even though the fog bank they travel in has
engulfed the town, which would seem to offer easier
pickings than a group of people barrica