Aaron Dane Shanley’s review published on Letterboxd:
"The Fog" (1980)
* dir: John Carpenter
* Horror / Supernatural / If You Come For The Fog, You Better Not Mist (Sorry)
[ ★★★★ / ★★★★★ ]
Wow, this one was way better than I'd remembered (and significantly more thematically rich).
A distinctly Northern California flavor of ghost story; all quaint little seaside communities bumping up against stygian thickets of ancient trees that conceal the darkest of hidden secrets even as they outstretch their spindly limbs ever towards the embrace of an angry and vengeful sea. Suburbia as a false respite from consequence. Success built upon the back of wanton death. Exploitation under the guise of accountability.
And then the fog rolls in.
It's also just a very spooky horror flick divorced from any of that subtext, a movie made with the utmost level of craft that has a clear love and reverence for the subgenre that comes across loud and clear in every frame. Few films manage to successfully cultivate the oppressively sinister atmosphere that Carpenter and Dean Cundey do with this thing, a hazy sort of salt-flecked suffocating dread that gradualy seeps its way into every last element of the plot.
I loved it, a real slept on little gem that I feel is underrated even among Carpenter devotees.
