13 Nights of Hallowe'en 2010: Night #3 The Fog (2005)

It's Thursday and our movie is the 2005 remake of The Fog. The first question you must be asking is why the remake? Don’t get mewrong, the original is classic John Carpenter, but it was so random overall. As far as storyline goes I prefer this remake with its solid back-story to explain the ghosts. It has a little bit of randomness and of course a modern aesthetic, but Carpenter himself seemed congenial to the film in the extras, so what the hey. The remake stars Tom Welling from Smallville and his love interest is Maggie Grace from Lost. The iconic radio host played by Adrienne Barbeau in the original is now played by Selma Blair from Hellboy and seems much more peripheral to the story. The director, Rupert Wainwright, also directed Stigmata and the episode "Echoes" of the TV horror series Fear Itself.

Remakes are a touchy subject, but I'm always of the mind that a movie should be watched on its own merits. Not on the original version, not on previous movies in a franchise, not even in comparison to other work by the same director. When it comes to discussing them it's okay to compare, but I don't think a strict comparison is fair either, something softer is required. Reviews on the other hand fit in with watching. The best remakes don't either try to outdo the original or just copy it; they go their own direction. That's why I like this The Fog too and why it's here. Now about the actual fog. It looks great here, but it doesn't exactly get the same importance. I don't know if it has more screen time or not, but it wasn't as powerful a point of tension. It's kind of like the radio host, there, has its place, but isn't the show runner it could have been.

Mood: obscure.

Music: Fear Of The Dark by Iron Maiden. MP3s

Expectation and Waiting

I'm taking a vacation from blogging to work on a major update of my Reviews site (with a tonne of movie reviews) and/or try to push forward more on my second novel. For now I'm going to say the break will be from today until and including the May 10th blog. That is 4 editions of this blog (5 counting how short today's is).

Thank you for reading this blog, take care of yourselves and you'll hear from me on May 14th.

Mood: frantic.
Music: While My Guitar Gently Weeps by The Beatles and Survivalism by Nine Inch Nails.

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My Pile-On Exemplar

There was one particular book that gave me the idea “pile on the circumstances”. The idea struck me so fully that I added it to my Windows desktop. This was a custom desktop I had made that had animation on it, and live links to files on my computer. This was back in Win98. The book is one of my favourites; in fact I have it listed at #5 on my list of favourite horror books at Bob’s Reviews. The book is  Cujo by Stephen King.

The book was chockfull of incidences that compounded upon each other to make for a small set of situations that seemed absolutely fated. If a couple of those circumstances had not fallen into place then the outcomes of the story could have been very different. The book itself could have been very different. This convergence, this conflagration built up the tension. It made the book. Not only was it a set of incidences that formed the plot, but it was also a set of lesser plots that formed into a single overarching plot.

This all hails back to the last three, and other previous posts, of this blog. As such it must be said that Cujo is not only a powerful book in its own right, but it is also a huge cornerstone of the “relational series” of Castle Rock books. As a part of that tapestry it drew upon the book before it,  The Dead Zone, and it impacted the future of the series starting with  The Dark Half. It is the familiarity that is brought to the story that gives it more strength than any stand-alone could wish to deliver.

These are the kinds of forces that shape a most enjoyable experience, a fan-base, and a market. It all builds upon itself forming something greater than any of the individual parts on their own. Not only that, but it makes for a phenomena, and who can argue with one of those in their repertoire.

Mood: level.
Music: King for a Day by Green Day and Tragic Kingdom by No Doubt.

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