Thankfully, my expectations weren’t high when I went in to this unnecessary remake.
First of all, one of the greatest things about the original was the casting. Every single actor was a recognizable, familiar and well liked genre actor. In the remake, you will know only three people, bland Maggie Grace, himbo Tom Welling and Selma Blair, who is relegated to almost special appearance status, despite being the best thing in the movie.
There is no tension, there isn’t much of a build up and there is mild suspense for a nanosecond as Rupert Wainwright and his co-conspirators take the stand out set pieces from the original and manage to ruin each of them in quick succession.
When I first read that Stevie Wayne was going to make it out of the lighthouse and be more involved in the thick of things, I didn’t realize that meant she would have one scene then pop out of nowhere in time for the dull finale.
Way too much CGI, poor characterization, an awful story and some over the top attempts at subtlety make a film full of plot holes big enough to have caused the Elizabeth Dane to sink.
The ghosts, fog, performances, visuals and musical stingers are all over the top and even the deaths are ruined by being completely unbelievable stuntman on a harness CGI overload type affairs.
It does look good when there’s no CGI fog in the frame and Selma Blair adds humour and good taste in music but that’s all this has to offer.
Obviously created for 13 year olds The Fog spells every little plot nuance out in B-I-G letters apart from its muddled conclusion (a conclusion that is alluded to by the halfway point) which managed to lose its target audience.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Overlong, uninteresting, totally pointless and a sad day for many a horror fan, The Fog really is second only to Gus Van Sant’s Psycho in the awful horror remake category.
