One out of
Five stars
Running time:
100 mins
Utterly pointless remake that fails on every level, despite the best efforts of its attractive cast.
What’s it all about?
Tom (Smallville) Welling stars as Nick, a descendant of one of the founding fathers of Antonio Island, Oregon. He has a quiet life, running a fishing boat with his best friend (DeRay Davis) and pining for his girlfriend Elizabeth (Lost’s Maggie Grace), who has moved away.
However, as Antonio Island prepares to celebrate its anniversary (and Elizabeth returns), strange fog-related events start happening. It soon turns out that a bunch of ghosts are wreaking havoc on the town and they’re mighty pissed off about something or other.
The Good
The actors do their best, under the circumstances. Welling makes an engaging lead and Grace employs her trademarked wounded, fragile look (that serves her so well in Lost) to good effect and wanders around in her underwear a lot. Similarly, Selma Blair is a welcome addition to any film but even she can’t save this mess, particularly when the script is so uninspiring.
The Bad
The crucial ingredient for a successful remake is to pick a film that wasn’t all that good in the first place and that certainly applies to Carpenter’s 1980 chiller. However, the remake is so unutterably bad that it makes the original look like a masterpiece by comparison.
There are two main problems. Firstly, it isn’t remotely scary, relying on messy, inexplicable death scenes for shock effect rather than bothering to establish a tangible sense of terror. Secondly, the script is illogical to the point of stupidity.
Worth seeing?
In a word, no. The Fog is crying out for the postmodern horror treatment (it would have worked much better as a black comedy) but this remake is badly written, stupid and unforgivably dull.