10 Failed Horror Movie Remakes That Could've Been Amazing
8. The Fog (2005)
Being underappreciated is kind of John Carpenter's thing, which makes a lot of his great movies from the 1970s and '80s prime targets for redos several years later.
There was the 2011 version of the Thing, which flopped, as well as Rob Zombie's Halloween, which was a critical disaster. Oh, and don't forget about the new and entire unremarkable Assault on Precinct 13!
Not a great track record then, and, unfortunately, the 2005 version of Carpenter's 1980 film The Fog does not buck this trend.
In the original, a mysterious smog descents on a seaside town, bringing with it the spirits of dead sailors who are out for revenge against those who wronged them. The '05 attempt, directed by Rufus Wainwright, follows the same premise, only much less competently.
Wainwright's Fog is painfully pedestrian, not scary in the slightest and not bold enough to encapsulate the themes of collective guilt the story revolves around. The original is far from Carpenter's best work, but the new one failed to rectify any of its mistakes, doubling down on them instead.
You could say Wainwright "mist" with this one... sorry.