The Fog (1980)

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Movie
German title The Fog - fog of horror
Original title John Carpenter's The Fog
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1980
length 90 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director John Carpenter
script John Carpenter,
Debra Hill
production Debra Hill
music John Carpenter
camera Dean Cundey
cut Charles Bornstein ,
Tommy Lee Wallace
occupation
Filming location Point Reyes Lighthouse

The Fog is a horror film by John Carpenter from 1980. The film, on which the criticism was mostly negative when it was released, blossomed into a commercial success and is now often counted among Carpenter's classics. In 2005 a remake was released under the same title .

action

At the beginning of the film a quote from Edgar Allan Poe appears :

"Is everything we see or seem nothing but a dream in a dream?"

On the 100th anniversary of the founding of the city of Antonio Bay in California , the first six settlers and city founders are to be honored with a festival. The night before, Father Malone discovered the diary of his grandfather, who was also a father, in his church. This is how he learns the prehistory of the city's founding: The first settlers had deliberately steered a ship onto a reef at Spyvey Point using a false beacon to prevent a leper colony from being built near them . A rich leper named Blake had previously bought the land intended for the colony from the men with gold. He and his fellow sufferers were on board the ship and drowned. The six conspirators founded the city after the disaster with the gold. They used some of the gold from the lepers to make an altar cross for the settlement's church. Thick fog was officially blamed for the ship's sinking.

Also that night, the radio presenter Stevie Wayne, who is on the air alone from the lighthouse on Spyvey Point, suddenly sees a broad and strangely glowing bank of fog approaching the bay. She warns the fishing boats of the thick fog over the radio, one of which will soon be enveloped in the fog. While drinking beer, the three crew members followed the broadcast and the appearance of the fog in order to take a closer look. On the upper deck, they suddenly see a ghost ship approaching them. The ghosts of those who drowned at the time, who seek revenge on the descendants of the six conspirators living in the city, break free from the unnatural fog and kill the three fishermen one after the other. The next morning, the couple Elizabeth Solley and Nick Castle, who only met the night before, go in search of the fishermen who had an appointment with Nick. They set sail and find one of the bodies on the unmanned boat. Later in the hospital, the killed fisherman wakes up and attacks Solley with a scalpel. She can evade and the attacker is dead again. Also that morning, Stevie's little son finds flotsam on the beach that turns out to be old plank. Stevie takes the find to her work at the lighthouse to learn more about its origins.

During the city anniversary celebration on that day, the climax of which is the unveiling of a memorial to the first six settlers by the mayor, mist again spreads from the sea over the whole city, and the creatures inside kill another inhabitant of Antonio Bay. From the lighthouse on Spyvey Point, Stevie, who overheard the fourth murder over the phone, sees the fog bank and warns the town's residents. When she realizes that her child is in danger at home, she asks listeners during the broadcast to save them from the fog. The creatures invade the house and kill the child's carer. But the boy is saved at the last moment by Nick and Elizabeth. They flee to Father Malone's church; the mayor and her assistant also come there. When the spirits of the sailors reach the church, Father Malone hands them the golden cross, whereupon the sailors first step back and the fog dissolves. When the others have left and the priest is alone in the church again, the fog returns to the church. The ghost of Blake, who had been robbed of life and gold by the conspirators, kills Father Malone, himself a descendant of one of the perpetrators, as the sixth person with a sword blow.

background

The Antonio Bay scenes were filmed in Point Reyes Station , a small town in Marin County , California . The filming location for the storyline of the lighthouse was the Point Reyes Lighthouse and for the ceremonial unveiling of the monument a restaurant in the immediate vicinity of Point Reyes Station, Olema. The Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Sierra Madre served as the church . The shot on the quay and the jetties was in Bodega Bay , a location that Hitchcock had already chosen for the film The Birds . John Carpenter made a cameo near the beginning of the film . He plays Father Malone's clerk, who calls out and demands his salary.

According to Don G. Smith , Carpenter was generally and especially at The Fog significantly influenced by the works of HP Lovecraft. This is evident in the film by the mention of Arkham Reef , where the colonists' ship ran aground.

criticism

"A technically virtuoso, effectively staged horror film with suggestive music that - very skillfully - spreads an atmosphere of fear and horror."

- Lexicon of international film

Awards

In 1981, The Fog was nominated for Best Horror Film and Best Special Effects at the Saturn Awards .

literature

  • John Kenneth Muir: Horror Films of the 1980s . McFarland & Company, Jefferson, North Carolina 2007, ISBN 978-0-7864-5501-0 , The Fog, pp. 90–95 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  • Jan CL König: Creation of horror. Effect aesthetics and emotional-cognitive reception of horror films and literature. Publishing house Peter Lang, Frankfurt / M. 2005, ISBN 3-631-54675-0 (detailed impact analysis of the film, scene protocol, editing lists for three of the scenes).
  • Frank Schnelle: Suspense, shock, terror. John Carpenter and his films. Verlag Robert Fischer, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-924098-04-2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tony Reeves: The Fog (1979) film locations. In: web presence movie-locations.com. The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations, accessed March 1, 2013 .
  2. ^ The Fog (1980). In: Don G. Smith: HP Lovecraft in popular culture: the works and their adaptations in film, television, comics, music, and games. Mc Farland & Company, 2006. ISBN 0-7864-2091-X .
  3. ↑ The Fog. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 

Web links