THE FOG

In the coastal city of Antonio Bay, following the construction of a monument to celebrate the city's founders and the discovery of some objects emerged from the waters and dating back to the nineteenth century, strange events begin to occur. A thick fog first envelops the surrounding waters and then spreads into the city's streets, bringing with it unsettling presences. It will be the task of a young fisherman, his girlfriend, and the local radio DJ to defeat the threat and uncover shocking truths. It had to happen sooner or later, it was inevitable! In the sea of remakes of horror classics that have been flooding theaters in recent years, sometimes with good results, sometimes not, the true scapegoat was still missing, that film against which to vent and thanks to which to join those who until now have complained about the easy remake trend. True black sheep of its genre, "The Fog" version 2006 is the clearest example of how one of the pillars of world horror cinema can be completely ruined. Not that the reputation of Carpenter's masterpiece suffers any consequences, be clear, but it is painful for the viewer who has appreciated the prototype to see the same story and the same characters reproposed in the most absolute chaos of good taste. In fact, as often happens in remakes of any era, there is a tendency to update the story and adapt it to modern viewers: therefore, the ghosts will no longer come on the occasion of the city's centennial (it is obvious that setting the film in the present day, this choice would have been impossible for temporal coherence!), but for much more trivial reasons; the first appearance of the ghosts will no longer occur at the expense of a group of fishermen, but at the expense of four stupid teenagers eager to party… and thus profaning until the insipid and ridiculous, not to mention the illogical ending, which completely deviates from the original screenplay by John Carpenter and Debra Hill. It is useless to continue with sterile comparisons between the old and the new "Fog", also because, except for the last twenty minutes, the two films, from a narrative point of view, proceed in a very similar way; rather, it is curious to note how this new version of "The Fog" turns out to be a bad film per se. Despite several winks to the modern video-dependent audience, thanks to the presence as protagonists of the two inexpressive stars of the small screen Tom Welling (Smallville) and Maggie Grace (Lost), the film is not minimally engaging for a teenage audience and visibly poorly made. The direction of Rupert Wainwright (already director of the interesting "Stigmata") is flat and lacks even the slightest touch of personality; the screenplay is full of naivety (characters right at the right moment) and holes (but the ghosts did not want to avenge themselves on the descendants of those who condemned them to damnation? What does the final twist have to do with it?). The digital special effects, in addition to being often intrusive in the plot, are not always of good quality and, moreover, the look of the ghosts, rather than causing fear, is close to involuntary parody, since the unsettling presences here are shown in a completely gratuitous way, appearing as transparent ghosties (you know the colleagues of Frank Bannister in "Suspense"?) who not only give up the menacing cutting weapons of the previous film, but also pronounce themselves in articulated speeches, covering themselves more and more with ridicule. Then, there is no trace of the suggestive soundtrack composed by Carpenter for his film here. The only discernible qualities in this film are a skillful use of natural locations and some well-created atmospheres by the fog effect, capable in some points of nullifying the security of a visual orientation, both for the characters on the screen and for the viewers; but with the positive aspects, unfortunately, we stop here. It is incredible to note how, with a story with great horror potential, there is no space for the slightest suspense; everything flows before the eyes of the bored viewer without the slightest emotional involvement and without creating the slightest tension, strangely, even the overused trick of sound jumps was not used to wake the viewer from drowsiness. In short, we are not only faced with the classic case of remake cannibalization, but with "The Fog" we have probably touched the metaphorical bottom, thus winning the cup as the worst remake that Hollywood has managed to produce so far.