Following up his breakthrough hit Halloween, John Carpenter eschewed slasher flick terror in favor of ghost story eeriness with The Fog, an atmospheric tale of the angry undead in which a small California coastal town becomes literally haunted by its...

John Carpenter is anything but subtle in his approach to shocker material. Premise is obvious from almost the first frame, as a grizzled John Houseman tells youngsters grouped around a campfire about a foggy curse that surrounds a coastal town where a horrible shipwreck took place 100 years ago.

The Fog is pivotal to the cementing of director John Carpenter’s aesthetic.

The problem is with the fog. It must have seemed like an inspired idea to make a horror movie in which clouds of fog would be the menace, but the idea just

Read the Empire Movie review of EMPIRE ESSAY: The Fog. Even if Carpenter can't quite resist his prerequisite dig at the American dream ("Our celebration...

The Fog will disappoint those expecting a re-run of the creepy scares from Halloween. Instead, expanding enormously on the fantasy elements of his earlier films

R • 1 hour 31 min • 1980