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But that's not necessarily a bad thing. There's nothing new under the sun as the saying goes, and this is especially true of the horror milieu. And as with most of his early work, Carpenter makes excellent use of all of it. The Fog is equal parts grotesque, dull, self righteously Spartan and yet it remains luridly compelling. People die, but in what might be an unconscious precursor to the PG-13 caste, every act of violence is brutal - but almost entirely blood free. The net effect of course is that one can extend the amount of time you can murder people without it seeming gratuitous. It’s a subconsciously striking contrast when it's used effectively.

The interminable periods where little or nothing seems to be happening are critical in this type of film - those expecting blood and gore will be distracted by the Chunky Soup style bits of (often clunky) expository dialogue. But even in an average film, it’s easy to see that actions carry more weight when there is meaning behind them. When all is said and done, the mystery of Antonio Bay is straight up Scooby Doo, but the slowly evolving trail of bloody bread crumbs is what ultimately gives the story ballast (nautical pun intended). Not to mention, Scooby Doo would have been a whole lot less stupid had the Scary Pirate Ghost hacked someone's eyes out once in a while.

And, maybe a generation of kids would never have slept again. But that’s beside the point.

Like a soap opera that's been on too long, The Fog falls back a bit much on its meager resources. We’re repeatedly told that the US Coast Guard is investigating the trawler’s disappearance, but at no time does anyone from the Federal Government show up to ask questions or investigate anything. We’re left with the town’s Standard Horror Movie Sherriff, a corpulent, balding twit who makes Boss Hogg look like Eliot Ness. But this IS a horror flick, and one belonging to a sub-genre that requires the cast to be completely isolated from both civilization AND logic. They exist in an existential fishbowl, and the only thing that matters is what happens in that dirty, brackish muck.

When all is said and done, what matters most is whether or not the story was effective. Three decades on, The Fog is more of a quaint curiosity than anything else, but it's still effective, albeit in the way my grandmother's turntable is when I want to listen to my LP collection. I can tell you one thing - it may be quaint, it may be derivative, and maybe sections of it are slower than a Klingon wedding - but like the best of John Carpenter, it's all made well by a strong setup, and a clever final scene. It's often said that you can't write a good story until you know how it ends - and if everyone at least knew how to begin and end a film the way John Carpenter once did, movies would be a grip ton more fun.

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