There are some moments where I really question my status and ideals as a filmgoer. Even knowing some films are significantly worse than others, I like to give all of them a chance to prove themselves. I like to have my own opinion, even if that does agree with the general consensus. Of course, some films are just so putrid and awful that giving them a chance ends up being a mere inane and stupid idea. I usually feel this way before and after watching most remakes. Some manage to slip through the cracks and prove to be surprisingly well done. But most end up being like The Fog.

The film starts with a backstory before jumping right into our setting: present day in the tightly knit, small island town of Antonio Bay. They have their own radio station, their own marina, and their own historical society. But soon after the introduction of our main two characters Nick and Elizabeth (Tom Welling and Maggie Grace), things begin to go a bit awry, as a giant fog begins to sweep over the town every night, causing havoc in its wake.

This is the mere basics of the story, as to say anymore would just ruin the lunacy of the entire plot, which I can only assume made some sort of sense when John Carpenter made it in the 1980s. I never saw the film, and still have yet to see it to this day. But going on Carpenter's early track record (as opposed to his more recent one), I will assume that the film was fairly horrific and fairly enjoyable. Sadly, the remake is anything but. The disgusting taste I had in my mouth after watching the film years ago has still yet to go away, and what I do remember of the film is best left forgotten. The story is silly, and gets progressively worse as it moves along. Suspenseful sequences are downright laughable, and anything vaguely “horrific” or “terrifying” comes much too late, and fails to scare the audience in any capacity.

While what happens in the story may be deemed slightly zany, it is the fact that so much could have been done in order to make it better. You learn early on that many of the inhabitants of the town share the same last names as others. Yet, nothing really becomes of this important subplot. Other subplots like character's departures or character backstories are vaguely poked at, but go nowhere later on. In some instances, other events happen later in the film that would make sense had the early mention been somewhat significant. As they stand, they just become even more questionable in the grand scheme of things. The movie is not that short (the Unrated Version clocks in at 103 minutes), but I am certain the filmmakers could have at least made some of these subplots have some kind of meaning if they are going to come up more than once. Leaving them, in the hacked up way that they do, suggests they should have been cut out entirely.

Every character is a cardboard cut-out, with next to no dimensionality whatsoever. Welling and Grace may have been in-demand TV stars at the time the film was made, but they show almost no acting muscle or capability, and just look awkward in their roles. But then again, Grace looks awkward in the majority of her performances. They cannot carry the film (even with their “hot” sex scene), so they rely on the much more capable Selma Blair for help. Sadly, she does not do much better. While she is able to deliver in small doses, Blair’s character never really moves away from the one dimensional territory shared by the rest of the cast. Each speak their lines with little to no enthusiasm, and you frequently wonder if they are actually acting, or just killing time before picking up a paycheck. Many of the sequences that plague the film are just boring because the cast has no direction as to what to do in order to make the scene work. Had a director been hired with more experience than music videos, TV movies, a Disney movie and a subpar 90's thriller, maybe the cast would have had some idea of what they should be doing (Rupert Wainwright has still only done that much since The Fog).

But I digress, as I leave the best for last – the special effects. As the title would suggest, the film is heavily effects-driven in many instances. While there are a small group of shots that work beautifully, the majority just look atrocious. Sadly, the titular fog is of particular note, as it looks awful almost every time. When it shows up (along with the “beings” it brings with it), the scenes just look half-baked. They look like the filmmakers had an idea of where they wanted to take the scene and what they wanted to show, and then decided to not put any effort into making it happen. You can tell what is visibly fake and what is not, and for a movie made during the 2000s, it comes off as totally amateur.

Carpenter may have been able to put together some sort of greatness back in 1980, but Wainwright seems incapable of even attempting to live up it. The Fog is an atrocious, almost unwatchable remake that merely proves that creativity in Hollywood continues to disappear. And sadly, as the movie came out in 2005 and we have seen dozens of remakes in the meantime, it appears almost nothing has been learned since.

  -- David Baldwin