15 Horror Films That Prove Hollywood Hates You
3. The Fog
The poster child for bland, rushed and unnecessary remakes, this reboot purports to be “From the makers of Halloween”, and while John Carpenter and Debra Hill are credited as producers, it’s safe to assume neither had much control over the finished product (Hill died seven months before the film’s release). Carpenter probably sat down with the producers, listened to their ideas and said, “Go ahead – make me rich.”
The Fog is an exploitation movie for the multiplex era: a cheap rip-off backed by a major studio (Sony) with a demographic-friendly rating, pretty stars from a popular TV show and absolutely nothing at its core. It’s a machine designed to score big on its opening weekend, making fortunes for its backers despite vanishing from the top ten after three weeks, sunk by negative reviews and poor word of mouth.
Most of The Fog’s cast either weren’t born or were still in diapers when Carpenter’s film came out, but hopefully they caught it on television. Hopefully someone did, although there’s not much evidence of that in the finished film. Antonio Bay has become Spooky Island, where kids know best and all the adults are corrupt, and all the supporting players seem to think they’re auditioning for a movie on the SyFy Channel.