The Fog - Will's Review.

Writer / Director John Carpenter, Producer Deborah Hill, and Actress Jamie Lee Curtis; the Halloween Gang are out in force on this one!

Some opening exposition comes in the form of a man scaring children with ghost stories: specifically the tale of how the founding fathers of their town had used a false beacon to lure a ship to its doom in order to loot it. The plundered gold was used to build thier town; one hundred years ago to the day.
As the clock strikes midnight and the town experiences all manor of phenomenon; car alarms go off, people loose electricity, windows break themselves... and a mysterious fog bank forms out to sea.

We quickly learn that the fog carries the ghosts of the wrecked ship, and that they are intent on having their revenge on the town that killed them.

Along the way we learn more specifics about the ghostly crew, an the full extent of the town's betrayal of them.

The whole thing is very unusually paced; there's always something going on, or some new revelation, yet somehow the movie feels like it plods along at a fairly relaxed pace. It doesn't necessarily suffer for it, mind, in fact I rather enjoyed it's slower pace; it wasn't until I thought about the film afterward that I realised how deceptive the apparent pace was.

The fog itself is a great device; fog always looks spooky, and it allows a ghost story to be told without having to see too much of the ghosts (we see them mostly in silhouette).

Performances are sound all around, most especially Adrienne Barbeau, as Stevie, DJ / owner of the local radio station.

The only real negative is the movie's brief epilogue, which undermines the films dramatic conclusion simply to squeeze in an extra kill.

Overall though, well worth watching.