I saw the 1980 original version of The Fog years ago and I remember liking it okay. That film wasn’t by any means spectacular but it is far superior to this laughable remake. The premise to this is just bursting with horror potential. You could do so many interesting spooky things with this plot but instead this film chooses to be aggressively dull and just downright silly. The script is mediocre at best, the special effects look fake, and there isn’t one scene that’s scary. I didn’t feel any sort of suspense ever and I didn’t jump once. The only positive aspect of this whole film is that the cast does a pretty decent job.
Tom Welling, Maggie Grace, and Selma Blair head up this cast. Welling is a good fit for the leading man role and he does a serviceable job. I mean it’s kind of hard for him to have any great moments though since the script is so negligible. But still, he’s just so charming and handsome. You can’t help but want to spend more time with him. Maggie Grace isn’t as engaging as Welling is but she still does her best with what she’s given. The two of them have some nice chemistry between them.
I really liked Selma Blair here as the town’s main radio personality. Blair is very likable and she does a good job playing a single mother. The other cast members are relegated to very minor unimpactful roles. It’s a real shame that the script is so lame because those three are game and can do quality work if you give them worthy material. This script is anything but worthy. First of all, the character and story development is unforgivably lazy. We know very little about these people and that results in little care about whether they make it out or not. You have to provide us with at least a little bit of interesting development so that we feel somewhat invested in their lives and well being.
All we know about Welling and Grace is that they are former lovers and she ran off for some reason. We aren’t given any scenes where their relationship is developed in a meaningful way though. If we’re supposed to buy these two as people that care about each other then we’ll need more than a brief shower scene between them. Blair’s character has a tad more development than the others because she’s a single mother. I enjoyed the scenes between her and her son. Those scenes gave us a little bit of an emotional connection to both her and her son.
The story isn’t handled much better than the characters, unfortunately. The story shifts between current day and flashbacks to when the island’s founders were alive. Neither the happenings of the current day or the past are very interesting. The occurrences in the present are all so by the numbers and dull and the flashbacks are too dull and brief to generate any kind of intrigue. There are no surprises here folks, this is one of the most predictable films you’ll ever see that’s for sure. There doesn’t seem to be any interest on the part of the filmmakers to be creative. And oh my goodness we must address the subpar special effects.
The fog itself looks obviously CGI animated in most shots and the actual ghouls themselves look awful. Almost every monster in the fog looks super shoddy and unconvincing. None of them come off as frightening in the least. And none of the onscreen kills are scary or suspenseful either. On the bright side, I did like some of the shots towards the end. There are some good shots of people being thrown through windows and glass displays in museums.
The negative side of that is that it’s not a good sign for your horror film when people being thrown through windows is the most intense part of the whole film. The ending is no better than the rest of the film either. The ending is, to be frank, laughable. The ending to a film like this should be scary and impactful but this films ending is neither of those things. But hey why would I expect a film that had been pretty awful up until the ending to end well? The final scene tries to be interesting and add another layer to the “story” but it falls on its face trying to do so.
The Fog (2005) is a lazy, aggressively mediocre, downright silly remake. The only memorable thing this has to offer is a devilishly handsome Tom Welling.
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