Tonight on Thursday Night AMP, co-hosts Stevie J and Peter H will be joined by Seth Drakin to preview Friday's ROH Final Battle iPPV. We'll also talk about Impact Wrestling, discuss what happened at WWE TLC and do the weekly NFL Pick 'Em.
This will be the last Spoilers To The Rescue for 2011 as I spoil two episodes of Impact. So for now, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Also I wish you whatever denomination you have, a Happy one of those.
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Saturday, December 24, 2011
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Monster Crap Inductee: The Fog (2005)
Monster Crap
Inductee: The Fog
One of The Worst Remakes Of All Time To Make It To Theaters
It’s been a long time coming, but I guess it is time that Monster Crap what has existed for the longest time, but until this generation has it become a plague on society and any announcement of such has been met by all film fans the same way: with their hands over their faces in shame. That thing is called the remake. It seems every generation, they talk about the lack of creativity with every films these days, but sadly……….this 21st century of films (while the trend of crap started in the late 90s technically) has been by far the worst to the fact that nearly a third of the movies these days are remake. In fact, the word remake has these days been met with such hatred that when asked if the film is a remake or not, they refuse and would rather use other words like “re-imagining”.
Because of that, today’s film will in fact be the first actual remake that will be inducted into Monster Crap. And boy, what a piece of crap we have. But let’s talk about the original.
In 1980, one year after my favorite director of all time, John Carpenter, basically created the slasher genre with his epic, Halloween.
While there are plenty who cite other films as the film that created the slasher (Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho or Bob Clark’s Black Christmas (both sadly having completely crappy remakes)), Halloween was considered by most the first. Afterwards, the genre was piled by a number of slasher films like Friday The 13th, Nightmare On Elm Street, etc. Hell, I’ve inducted a few. I mentioned Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, but I have also inducted many more.
Anyway, the film received great reviews by almost all of the critics and showed promise for John Carpenter. He then followed that up with two TV movies before returning to the cinemas with The Fog. A film about supernatural ghosts who come with a cursed fog to exact their revenge on a town for the crime committed against them 100 years ago by the founding fathers of the town, whose descendants basically run it.
While considered not as good as Halloween, the film was also received positively by critics. John Carpenter would continue to make great films that can be appreciated by all generations like his remake of The Thing from Another World (called simply “The Thing” (which is my favorite film of all time)), Escape From New York, among others.
So of course, it had to be remade. But with this being a remake, we need a competent direc…….wait, I forgot that in this new remake craze, basically anyone could be hired to direct these films………so let’s get the director of Blank Check.
Let’s continue because not only did we decide that we should have Tom Welling (who was just being considered big as Clark Kent in Smallville (which had been on for a few seasons)) and Selma Blair (who would be remembered being in a kissing scene with Sarah Michelle Gellar in Cruel Intentions & being Liz Sherman in Hellboy) would star in this film. So it’s time for me to review this piece of crap and yes, I’m not even going to pretend to be in this film fresh. I saw this movie in the theaters for Christ sakes, so here we go………..
We begin this scene with some footage of a guy screaming and a boat catching on fire. We also see a boat paddling away and a different guy catching on fire. But what is apparently most important is a bag falling into the water.
The scene ends with one of the men in the small boat getting dragged into the sea so basically, we only know that people were able to get away from a burning boat and a guy got dragged under. I know more will be explained later, but in the original…..we got a campfire scene where a weary old man tells a bunch of kids about what happened and basically set up the whole movie. We then move to……….
We are then introduced to radio DJ Stevie Wayne (played by Selma Blair) who is at a lighthouse on Antonio Island. Anyway, Stevie Wayne is basically a DJ who uses her voice to arouse men so they would continue to listen. Oh and today is apparently the day where a new statue will be unveiled which commemorates Antonio Bay’s founders. For those of you wondering………there is apparently one city on this entire island called Antonio Bay. And seeing as how this town is shown to be really not that big, either Antonio Island is rather small or there is a whole hell of a lot of the island that isn’t populated at all. Basically she reveals that one of the founders is her great-great grandfather.
Now here is the problem with Selma Blair. Selma is a very attractive young lady and all, she really doesn’t have the voice to be considered sultry and would arouse men in my mind. Her voice sounds more bored than seductive. Especially if you compare that to the original Stevie Wayne Adrienne Barbeau…….who had a voice that could really turn people on and she never sounded bored. As a guy who does some radio myself (online radio), if you want your character to be the desire of every man despite not seeing your face, you need to go all out and wrap the audience in with a really sultry voice and the original version pulled that off better than the newer version.
But we go to the mayor Tom Malone & Kathy Williams.
I guess I should mention that Tom Malone was not in the original and is basically in this version to be the brother of Father Malone (who we will meet later). That is Kenneth Walsh and basically Kenneth Walsh at that time was just around to play assholes (he was really good at that). Hell, he was a huge jerk in The Day After Tomorrow as the Vice President. We will get to Kathy Williams much later, but we get back to the film by noticing that Kathy is very upset that another person has the spyglass over her ancestor, who actually had it. Tom Malone tries to tell her that it really doesn’t matter, but she wants to send it back. However, Tom tells her that it is kind of too late to send it back since the unveiling is tonight so Kathy instead tells Tom to send it back at the end of the season so they can get it right.
We then meet our main character Nick Castle (played by Tom Welling).
Especially considering that Nick Castle (yes, John Carpenter named the character after the guy who he had play Michael Myers for 99% of Halloween) was played by Tom Atkins.
But Tom Atkins spoke and acted like a guy who was very good with the ladies and you could believe as a leading man. Tom Welling, acts and speaks like an unconfident individual who you would guess would be brooding all the damn time, which was basically the same type of performance he gave for Clark Kent in Smallville. So yeah, I would rather have Tom Atkins than Tom Welling.
Anyway, Nick here (with the help of his first mate Spooner)….
They are trying to sell these two fishermen who chartered their boat The Sea Grass about the greatness of Antonio Bay and try to get some money for a good fishing experience. They try to weigh the anchor, but the anchor gets caught. This causes the ship to tip and thankfully, the two were able to avoid the ship capsizing, but they lose some of the fish they catch, which definitely pisses off the fishermen. But the bigger news as the film shows is that what the anchor was caught on was one of those bags that had personal belongings of that ship that caught on fire at the beginning.
When they get the anchor up, the bag busts open.
Then we get to meet our title character……..
And this is where our biggest problem shows up………the fog is clearly CGI and bad CGI at that. In the original, the fog was a lot of smoke which while not fog…….could look more like fog and is in fact more eerie that well………..what we have in this film.
Meanwhile we have Machen, who is an old man who basically spends his days with his metal detector, hoping to find something that is worth money.
He finds an old pocket watch and as he leaves, water washes away the seaweed which was covering the watch to also reveal….
Of course, Machen never sees the hand so he leaves.
Elsewhere, we see a fisherman (who is Uncle Hank) go to the dock where he hears his dogs barking and finds that one of his dogs has mysteriously died.
Now while not as insulting as what I call Pointless Child Death (where they just kill a kid that is not built up or has no character……….just for cheap shock), killing a dog and having this guy bemoan this and then……..having it never brought up again, that is almost as offensive to me as a viewer.
Back on the road, Nick drives and sees a woman hitchhiking. He stops and how much you want to bet it is Elizabeth.
She is of course played by Maggie Grace, who was at the time Shannon Rutherford in Lost. I guess in some ways that is all well and good, but there is no way she will be able to pull off the role as well as her predecessor…………Jamie Lee Curtis, who had just worked with Carpenter and gotten her big break the same way with Halloween.
Anyway, Jamie Lee Curtis was pretty big at that time so Maggie Grace, much like Tom Welling and Selma Blair, is a huge step down from the original. Trust me, we will have more disappointments when compared to the original.
Anyway, Elizabeth is back and she screws with Nick a little bit and mentions that she hasn’t been gone that long. Um…………you have been gone for 6 months without apparently telling anyone or writing anyone, that’s a pretty long time to be gone and do all that. Now while my brother was deployed overseas away from his wife and kid for nearly a year, he made damn sure to check in with them. Elizabeth, you fail!!!!!!
But Elizabeth shows Nick how grateful she is to be back with him by………..
We then go to the lighthouse to get more radio from Stevie Wayne.
She talks about there being a low tide and mentions Dan The Weatherman. Now while Selma acts like she is trying to be sultry on the radio, she does not seem to have the voice to convince me so as much as Adrienne Barbeau did. Meanwhile some music is playing and we see the Sea Grass out at sea where Spooner and his friend Sean have commandeered the boat so they can party with some young girls.
We also immediately find out that Sean is Nick’s cousin. This whole trip was done without Nick’s permission and when he finds out (via the ship not being where it should be), he is not too happy, but what the hell can he do so he decides to hang some more with Elizabeth. Now while Nick is finding this out, Elizabeth has a conversation with Machen who shows her the watch he found. When Elizabeth touches it, the watch mysteriously starts working.
We have a pointless scene where a bell with the name Elizabeth Dane on it starts ringing mysteriously. Meanwhile, Stevie gets a call from Dan The Weatherman who tries to put the moves on her over the phone, but Stevie is not falling for it.
Anyway, Dan reveals why he really called and says that there is a fog bank that is moving against the wind (which is very unusual) so Stevie reports it on the air.
Now let’s go back to Dan The Weatherman (who is played by Jonathon Young). Jonathon was in a films beforehand with rather minor roles, but he is easily a far cry from Charles Cyphers, who played Dan O’Bannon (basically same character, but with a last name. The full name being Carpenter using another guy he used to work with as a name for one of his characters (this time being the screenwriter who worked with John in John Carpenter’s directorial debut Dark Star). Charles Cyphers, for Halloween fans out there, was Sheriff Bracket.
Back on the Sea Grass, Spooner, Sean, Mandi, & Jennifer talk about how they don’t see the fog. Sean tries to start the engine, but it is dead and that is when of course they get attacked by………..
The four see it coming and are completely terrified by it.
The fog starts entering the city and through mysteriously breaking windows, they cause Nick and Elizabeth to stop the car. When they wonder what the hell just happened, Father Malone shows up drunk as a skunk basically telling them that they are murderers and says the whole town is filled with murderers. When they ask Father Malone if he saw anything that caused the windows to be busted, Malone says that he saw nothing.
Time for another moment where this version of The Fog proves it’s a poor remake with another actor to actor comparison (which the original is always going to win). Father Malone in this version is played by Adrian Hough, who at this time basically did TV and direct to TV work……..although he did voice Nightcrawler in the 1990s X-Men cartoon. But other than that, there wasn’t much known about him. The original Father Malone was Hal Holbrook, who had memorable roles as Abraham Lincoln in a TV miniseries chronically the life of the 16th president, on stage as Mark Twain, and of course as the enigmatic “Deep Throat” in All The President’s Men.
Back to the movie, it is clear Father Malone is a drunk and the couple just basically brushes him off.
On the boat, everything electronic on the boat breaks which freaks everyone out. Sounds are heard outside the boat and Spooner decides to investigate. He freak out as they see an old ship come out of the fog.
He calls Sean to come out and see this, but by the time Sean gets there, the boat is gone. This of course leaves the two ladies inside and they get killed by………something, as they get propelled through windows and are automatically dead. Something shows up in the shadows of the fog inside the boat, but when the two guys wonder what it is……….a knife gets possessed and launches itself into Sean’s head.
Spooner gets even more scared as he watches Sean fall over and die. The ship gets enveloped by the fog and we hear Spooner scream, so we change scenes to Elizabeth confronting her mother, who is Kathy Williams.
And now let’s get to the difference between the two films as far as the relationship between Elizabeth and Kathy goes. In this version, Elizabeth is Kathy’s daughter. But in the original, Elizabeth is just a hitchhiker coming into town who has no relation at all to Kathy. Of course I’m sure in this version that was done to play off the fact that the role of Elizabeth in the original was played by Jamie Lee Curtis and the role of Kathy in the original was played by Jamie’s mom, Janet Leigh, who was a pretty big actress herself from Psycho.
So basically it already should be a given that the better performance was given in the original, but let’s go ahead and look at who played Kathy in this version. Kathy was played by Sara Botsford, who was known at the time for being the lead in the TV series that went on for 5 seasons, E.N.G. Yep………it’s a double given on who the better performance goes to.
Anyway, Elizabeth confronts Kathy, who is pretty much a bitch when it comes to your daughter coming home. Kathy wishes Elizabeth called first and she says that house isn’t a hotel. This pisses Elizabeth off who leaves and consoles herself by going to Nick’s house and…….
And no……..you will not be seeing Maggie Graces’ boobs because this film is PG-13 after all………even though I am watching the supposed Unrated version of the film that was released on DVD. By the way, while the Unrated version is probably more superior to the PG-13 theatrical cut………..it’s not by much as there are some more effects, but the effects are still crap and basically the movie is just made longer.
That night, Elizabeth hears the sound of banging and is woken up by it, which in turn wakes up Nick. Elizabeth explains that she keeps seeing people burning and ends up drowning in her dreams. She of course explains that she has been having them a lot so that is why she came home. He is able to calm her down by saying that they are only just dreams and of course, they go back to bed.
That night, Elizabeth draws the symbol of a balance scale and looks it up on Google to wonder what it means. When she finds a ship hallmark that looks like the weighing scale she was drawing, the computer goes on the fritz and the word Dane is shown.
This goes on for a few seconds before the computer just turns off. Suddenly she notices wet footprints on the ceiling.
She follows the footprints into the living room and then hears banging at the door, which of course is being caused by a ghost club.
Elizabeth goes to check on what it is, but nobody is there. She then heads towards the beach, while putting on a sweater because she hears a voice calling her name. She is startled by Nick who comes up from behind to wonder what is going on. She basically doesn’t say anything and the two head back inside.
The
next day, a kid comes walking on the beach and finds a brush. The kid goes back
to the house to show his mom, who just so happens to Stevie Wayne. We also
learn the kid’s name is Andy. Andy wants to go back to the beach and Stevie allows
it, but only for 30 more minutes as she has to go to work early as today is a
big day. Andy wants to go to work with her, but Stevie declines.
Elizabeth rides her bike into town and sees the statue. She goes to the town hall and looks up the symbol she saw on her computer.
A
professor comes by who explains that the symbol is for Prince William Island,
an island that got rich quickly off trading before a leprosy outbreak killed
half the town and the other half left by ship but never returned.
Meanwhile, Nick meets up with Stevie and we get more hints that they had something going before Elizabeth came back into town. Nick gets a call about his ship not coming back yet and he goes to get Elizabeth and take her with him, to find out what happened to the Sea Grass. Uncle Hank is about to call the coast guard, but Nick advises against it while saying the boat probably anchored up the channel so he will go out and get it. He asks to use Hank’s boat, which Hank has no problem with.
The two find the boat and it appears to be abandoned. However, the two find Sean’s body and also find the body of the two girls, which were hanging off the net.
They
also find Spooner, who is barely alive after being in the freezer.
Stevie
hears the news via the radio of her car. Back at the site, we see a screaming
mother who is upset by the death of her daughter. Tom Malone asks Nick and
Elizabeth if Spooner said anything to them and both respond that he hasn’t said
a word. The police ask if he wants them to arrest Spooner and when Nick asks
what for, Tom explains that Spooner is the prime suspect in the deaths of Sean,
Jennifer, and Mandi. Also Hank shows up to tell Tom that the coast guard wants
to speak to him.
Tom goes to leave, but before he does so……he tells Nick that when Spooner thaws out, he better have a damn good story about what happened. When everyone leaves, Spooner tells Nick that “The fog killed them”. When Elizabeth asks what he means, Nick reveals that he was able to take a camera away from the boat before the authorities could find it and he tells her to keep it for now.
Meanwhile, we see Stevie enter the lighthouse and begin her radio show. She finds a gift and sees that it is a webcam. When she sets it up, Dan is on the other line asking her if she liked his gift, to which Stevie responds that if she wanted people to see her…she wouldn’t have gone to radio. Or……….maybe you are more comfortable talking on the radio than in front of a camera, but that is just my experience with the medium. Back at Nick’s charter house, Elizabeth is looking at the footage from the camera. It pretty much confirms that Spooner did not kill the three others…………….so how much you want to bet this somehow gets lost and/or destroyed.
Elizabeth gets knocked out for a second, but is able to wake up before she drowns. Oh but she gets caught in a freaking net.
Elizabeth is able to get out of the net and when she goes to get back onto dry land, she finds a journal that was hidden in the walls.
Back
at the lighthouse, Stevie hears a strange noise that appears to be coming from
the strange hairbrush that her son found. The brush then catches on fire.
Stevie
immediately calls home and tells Andy to not go on the beach. Of course since
the babysitter Connie, she does hear this conversation…
So when she asks what Stevie said, Andy lies and then asks to go onto the beach, which Connie is okay with.
We then get a shot that shows that the CGI Fog is coming back before we go to the church, Elizabeth looks for Father Malone. She of course finds him at the graveyard drinking. Elizabeth shows Father Malone the diary and after a few minutes, Father Malone tells her that she really should get off the island. We then get flashback footage to reveal that the ghost ship that we have seen in the past was called the Elizabeth Dane.
At the hospital, the mayor grills Spooner about what happened on the boat while Nick watches. Elizabeth wants to speak with Nick, but Nick says now is not the best time since it appears Spooner is in a lot of trouble. While waiting outside, Elizabeth looks at Sean’s body and then turns away. When she goes over to look at the other bodies, Sean’s corpse awakens.
It
walks over to Elizabeth and grabs her. It tells her “Blood for Blood” before
falling over. Elizabeth is horrified and the noise sends out Tom and Nick, who
are confused by what happened.
At a bar, Nick tries to calm Elizabeth down with some alcohol. Elizabeth doesn’t think Nick believes her, but the guy actually makes good points by saying all the crap that he is going through right now so what does she want him to do. Elizabeth then explains that it isn’t just her as Father Malone is planning on leaving the island and she tells him that the footage shows that Spooner was innocent. When Nick asks her about the camera, she explains that she lost it, but shows the diary that she found. They then look at the family photos where they were living in shacks before 1871 where the town miraculously appears, which makes them wonder what happened to cause the town to be created in one year’s time. Another flashback shows up that shows the four founding fathers of the town speaking to each other and agreeing on what they about to do (whatever that is). They then sail out to sea and that is all of the flashback we get for now.
Back at the hospital, Spooner has escaped, which definitely does not help his case for not committing the murders. We get another scene with Machen as he sees an entire table with chairs and dinnerware on the sand.
Of course that moment is ruined by the chandelier that has also washed up onto the beach.
Machen’s metal detector then goes off as he finds an anchor held by a rope buried in the sand. Machen (wondering what is at the other end) goes out to see to see what is at the other end. Of course this drags him underwater as the fog approaches. Of course, Andy sees this buffoonery and is now terrified.
Andy then tries to outrun the fog. And yet somehow Andy is able to get back into the house before the fog can get to him. Connie then closes the door behind Andy and they both see the fog surround the house with them inside as well as parts of the town. Meanwhile back at the lighthouse, Stevie gets news from Dan that another fog bank is coming into the area and it has already surrounded his post. The power then goes out at Dan’s place, but the computer still works (which he chalks up to batteries). Dan then hears huge bangs on his door and Dan decides to investigate, despite Stevie being against it. Dan goes outside and of course, the fog gets him, but I blame it on Dan and here is why. Dan drops the oil lamp on himself and catches on fire. Then of course the fog throws him throw him back inside, but the fire kills him.
While
more graphic and all in the unrated version, this scene is one of those moments
where the alternate cut is a better version. And I don’t mean the theatrical
cut of this scene, I mean the third alternate cut that didn’t make it to
theaters or DVD. The scene shows the lamp being taken from Dan’s hands and
floating around him before being thrown at him. Yes, it may have been longer,
but it would have made Dan look less like a dumbass because he didn’t drop the
damn thing on himself.
Stevie immediately calls her own house and before she can say anything, the phone cuts out. Outside of the town center, Kathy is giving a speech about how this whole town owes a debt of gratitude to the four men who founded Antonio Bay. Of course the speech is cut short as power goes out throughout the town. Back to Andy and Connie, Connie tells Andy that they better close all the windows. While Connie is gone to close all the windows in Stevie’s room, Andy looks out and states that the fog wants them for some reason.
Back at the town center, we hear Kathy tell everyone that the lights should be back on soon while Nick & Elizabeth comment how it is strange to have a power outage at this time. However, Tom makes the ultimate decision that it is best if everyone just went home. At the lighthouse, Stevie says that there is an emergency going on and she needs someone to check on her son. Nick hears this and tells Elizabeth they need to head to the house. Oh and she does the line “There Is Something In The Fog” which if you have watched the original is a very memorable line and in this one, it is just jumbled in there with the rest of her dialogue.
Stevie then immediately gets into her car and heads towards her house. While driving there, Elizabeth reads Nick the diary. She reveals a character named William Blake who had a proposition for the town folks and that was to set up a colony at the other side of the island. We see more flashback footage of the Elizabeth Dane and her crew
Back at the house, we see Connie washing the dishes when she notices smoke coming from the drain. Oh no, it’s this death. It’s the one death of the two deaths that pissed me off with this film because they made no sense with the rest of the film. Here we go……..
Connie looks at the sink to figure out what is going on and a hand grabs her.
She
struggles for a bit and the hand let’s go. Suddenly, her arm starts changing
colors and she rots into bones. Yes you heard me, she got touched to death.
The ghosts in the fog don’t kill anyone like this again. They mostly just kill the people by possessing objects and using them for murder (although I guess you could count the fucking dog as how they did this, but even then………you don’t see this shit happen to the dog and the fog is definitely not even nearby when it happens). This film is my second most offensive death because of how stupid it is done, but there is one more death that is worse and we will get to that crap later.
Meanwhile, Stevie (in her own car) has her car stop for some reason and her car gets engulfed into the fog bank.
Stevie is scared by the fog and suddenly, a truck comes by and knocks her off the road and into the water.
Now
I have never been in a crash with a truck and all, but my brother has had a
small car rear end into the SUV he was borrowing from my dad and while the
small car got more damage, the SUV driver freaking noticed when the crash happened.
This movie, the truck goes on its merry way as if nothing happens and we never
see this truck again.
Back to the film and we have Stevie wake up when the car is overflowing with water and while she is trying to escape, we get our first shot of the CGI ghosts.
Stevie is able to escape thanks to a door that just so happened to be open and is able to survive. Back at the house, Andy makes the gruesome discovery of Connie’s corpse. Andy runs into his room and locks the door. The fog enters the house and we see banging on his door. But luckily for Andy, Nick has shown up and breaks a window, allowing Andy to escape before the fog can get to him. But not before we see another crappy CGI ghost.
They get into the truck (not the one that ran Stevie down mind you) and escape. We also see Nick run over one of the ghosts.
Meanwhile we see Spooner at the docks waiting for the ferry to get him off this island and of course Father Malone is also there. Of course the ghost ship shows up and both of them decide to get the hell out of dodge. The truck that carried Nick, Elizabeth, and Andy runs into a conveniently placed boat that yes, we will never talk about again.
While recovering, Elizabeth has more dreams about the Elizabeth Dane and we see the four founding fathers of Antonio Bay coming onto the ship. While Blake is reading the contract for the half of the island, one of the founding fathers decides to pull a gun on Blake. They say to Blake that he will give them all of the gold and the Elizabeth Dane will escape with their wretched lives. Blake is upset with this betrayal.
When Elizabeth wakes up, she is met by Nick and Andy. They meet Hank who is in full leprosy mode and when they ask him to come with them, Hank says he can’t because he needs to find his dogs as they are all that he has left. Hank goes into the fog and we hear a scream signifying his death. We do see that there are ghosts in the fog and this causes the three to leave.
They meet Stevie, who is happy to see that her son is still alive. When they enter the town hall, Elizabeth sees the statue and we see the flashback of all that happens with the Elizabeth Dane. The founding fathers rob the Elizabeth Dane, lock the people into the cabins, and set the ship ablaze. The lepers are all burned to death and in some cases, drown.
When that flashback is over, Nick, Elizabeth, Stevie, & Andy are all greeted by Kathy and Tom. Spooner and Father Malone also join. There Elizabeth tells her mother and the mayor what the founding fathers did. Of course the two who have profited most by this town don’t see why they are suffering for the sins of their father and when Father Malone confirms the truth, Tom calls him a liar. Outside we see the ghosts have come.
The
body of Hank is thrown through the window and Kathy is grabbed by the ghosts.
Elizabeth screams and is held back by Nick. Everyone runs while Father Malone
stays to face his fate.
Broken glass surrounds Father Malone and stabs him.
Oh
by the way, that last shot where you can see a little red signifying blood. In
the theatrical PG-13 cut of the film, that red was missing. Apparently to get a
PG-13 rating for this thing, impalement had to look like a ghosts going through
you. I would also like to add for all of you who say “well, what about the
original?” the original was Rated R.
Anyway, Father Malone dies. The ghost comes in and grabs Tom and drags him all the way to the graveyard.
Once at the graveyard, Tom sees that he is surrounded by all of the ghosts.
Tom
is given the contract back by the ghost of Blake and it engulfs Tom in flames.
So
of course Tom is now dead, but here comes the last and worst death in the
movie. Elizabeth is at the graveyard and we find out that Elizabeth is the
reincarnation of Blake’s love. She goes over and kisses Blake and she becomes a
ghost herself.
The ghosts then all go away, leaving Nick heartbroken.
Do you really want to know why this is stupid? Well, here it goes. In no (and I repeat NO) other movie that I know of has a kiss transformed one person into a ghost. We’ve see ghosts come out of a person during a kiss and the body dies or whatever, but we have never see a person be human one moment……but after a kiss, turn into a fucking ghost. Do you want to know why? Because as far as matter is concerned, IT MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE!!!! Bodies are always around and buried. Bodies don’t just evaporate into a fucking ghost.
I remember watching this in the theater and this was months before I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis so at the time, I really wasn’t the best judge of what was good so I was willing to forgive the whole Connie death, but this……………….even at that point in my life, I said bullshit. That pissed me off more than anything. So you want to know what made me hate this movie……………..there is your moment.
But the movie isn’t over as after all of that, we see Stevie at her radio station in the lighthouse (with her son there) trying to explain about what happened as people try to move on with their lives and warn us that this could happen again. They don’t know why this happened and quite honestly, we as the audience don’t know why this happened.
In the original, the ship was sunk by a false fire (lit by the founding fathers) that they thought was the lighthouse (with the fog they couldn’t tell) and caused their ship to crash on the rocks. That was a 100 years ago and when the present hit for the centennial, the ghosts come back to get their revenge.
In the remake, its 120 years after the boat was burned (which the fog only served as a background for instead of being one of the reasons the ship sunk) so it makes no sense to choose then other than………..the statue was being made, Elizabeth was coming back, and the Sea Grass’ anchor had opened the bags hiding the remaining souvenirs from the ship. You see how basically just random all that shit happening at the same time is. It’s basically the biggest of coincidences for the ghosts to show up.
Now since the movie is over, I guess we need to talk about the aftermath. For the movie itself, it got number one in the box office, but as many experts had pointed out, with the money it made….it could be contributed to not many people going to the theaters that week. In fact, if this movie had opened a year earlier at the same time and gotten the same money………..it would have finished fifth.
Now it is time for the aftermath of the actors. Tom Welling, with this crap and Cheaper By The Dozen 2, proved that he was not a movie actor and was stuck doing Smallville because no more movie acting gigs came his way. Maggie Grace was screwed for a while by being stuck in Direct To DVD films before getting a big break by playing the kidnapped daughter of Liam Neeson’s character in Taken. Selma Blair has basically been stuck with the Hellboy franchise and not much else as far as big movies go.
But saddest of all would have to go to Debra Hill, who was the producer to this film and worked a lot with John Carpenter in many of his films. A few months before this film was even released to theaters, Debra Hill lost her battle with cancer at the age of 54. She contributed to a film a year later directed by Oliver Stone called World Trade Center, but this was the last film she was able to work with John Carpenter as they both were producers for this film.
Now let’s talk about how god awful this remake is. The film suffers from many problems. The acting is horrible, mainly because the actors are basically younger actors who were so miscast as replacements for the originals. Seriously, you look at the original cast, then look at this movie and just scratch your head as to what they were thinking. The script was abysmal, several times bringing things into the film only to be quickly dropped like it never happened. The special effects are horrendous abominations compared to the original. The original believed in a more “what you can’t see may be more terrifying that what you can” while this version believed in a “show everything” approach which rarely works. When people talk about how remakes are terrible these days and how they are ruining cinema, this is the poster child for that logic and honestly you can see why.
Well, that is all for this year so I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (and a merry whatever denomination you believe in at this time of). Join me next year in January as we induct the GINO Award Winner which signifies the worst movie to come out this year.
One of The Worst Remakes Of All Time To Make It To Theaters
2005
It’s been a long time coming, but I guess it is time that Monster Crap what has existed for the longest time, but until this generation has it become a plague on society and any announcement of such has been met by all film fans the same way: with their hands over their faces in shame. That thing is called the remake. It seems every generation, they talk about the lack of creativity with every films these days, but sadly……….this 21st century of films (while the trend of crap started in the late 90s technically) has been by far the worst to the fact that nearly a third of the movies these days are remake. In fact, the word remake has these days been met with such hatred that when asked if the film is a remake or not, they refuse and would rather use other words like “re-imagining”.
Yes,
I Know Texas Chainsaw Massacre The Next Generation Was Considered By Some A
Remake, But It Is Considered By Most A Sequel.
Because of that, today’s film will in fact be the first actual remake that will be inducted into Monster Crap. And boy, what a piece of crap we have. But let’s talk about the original.
In 1980, one year after my favorite director of all time, John Carpenter, basically created the slasher genre with his epic, Halloween.
While there are plenty who cite other films as the film that created the slasher (Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho or Bob Clark’s Black Christmas (both sadly having completely crappy remakes)), Halloween was considered by most the first. Afterwards, the genre was piled by a number of slasher films like Friday The 13th, Nightmare On Elm Street, etc. Hell, I’ve inducted a few. I mentioned Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, but I have also inducted many more.
Anyway, the film received great reviews by almost all of the critics and showed promise for John Carpenter. He then followed that up with two TV movies before returning to the cinemas with The Fog. A film about supernatural ghosts who come with a cursed fog to exact their revenge on a town for the crime committed against them 100 years ago by the founding fathers of the town, whose descendants basically run it.
While considered not as good as Halloween, the film was also received positively by critics. John Carpenter would continue to make great films that can be appreciated by all generations like his remake of The Thing from Another World (called simply “The Thing” (which is my favorite film of all time)), Escape From New York, among others.
So of course, it had to be remade. But with this being a remake, we need a competent direc…….wait, I forgot that in this new remake craze, basically anyone could be hired to direct these films………so let’s get the director of Blank Check.
If
This Was A Video Review, You Could Definitely See Me Putting Both Hands Over My
Face In Shame.
Let’s continue because not only did we decide that we should have Tom Welling (who was just being considered big as Clark Kent in Smallville (which had been on for a few seasons)) and Selma Blair (who would be remembered being in a kissing scene with Sarah Michelle Gellar in Cruel Intentions & being Liz Sherman in Hellboy) would star in this film. So it’s time for me to review this piece of crap and yes, I’m not even going to pretend to be in this film fresh. I saw this movie in the theaters for Christ sakes, so here we go………..
We begin this scene with some footage of a guy screaming and a boat catching on fire. We also see a boat paddling away and a different guy catching on fire. But what is apparently most important is a bag falling into the water.
I’ll
Talk About Who Kenneth Walsh Is A Bit Later
The scene ends with one of the men in the small boat getting dragged into the sea so basically, we only know that people were able to get away from a burning boat and a guy got dragged under. I know more will be explained later, but in the original…..we got a campfire scene where a weary old man tells a bunch of kids about what happened and basically set up the whole movie. We then move to……….
Thanks
Movie For Telling Us Where This Whole Movie Will Be Set At
We are then introduced to radio DJ Stevie Wayne (played by Selma Blair) who is at a lighthouse on Antonio Island. Anyway, Stevie Wayne is basically a DJ who uses her voice to arouse men so they would continue to listen. Oh and today is apparently the day where a new statue will be unveiled which commemorates Antonio Bay’s founders. For those of you wondering………there is apparently one city on this entire island called Antonio Bay. And seeing as how this town is shown to be really not that big, either Antonio Island is rather small or there is a whole hell of a lot of the island that isn’t populated at all. Basically she reveals that one of the founders is her great-great grandfather.
Now here is the problem with Selma Blair. Selma is a very attractive young lady and all, she really doesn’t have the voice to be considered sultry and would arouse men in my mind. Her voice sounds more bored than seductive. Especially if you compare that to the original Stevie Wayne Adrienne Barbeau…….who had a voice that could really turn people on and she never sounded bored. As a guy who does some radio myself (online radio), if you want your character to be the desire of every man despite not seeing your face, you need to go all out and wrap the audience in with a really sultry voice and the original version pulled that off better than the newer version.
But we go to the mayor Tom Malone & Kathy Williams.
I guess I should mention that Tom Malone was not in the original and is basically in this version to be the brother of Father Malone (who we will meet later). That is Kenneth Walsh and basically Kenneth Walsh at that time was just around to play assholes (he was really good at that). Hell, he was a huge jerk in The Day After Tomorrow as the Vice President. We will get to Kathy Williams much later, but we get back to the film by noticing that Kathy is very upset that another person has the spyglass over her ancestor, who actually had it. Tom Malone tries to tell her that it really doesn’t matter, but she wants to send it back. However, Tom tells her that it is kind of too late to send it back since the unveiling is tonight so Kathy instead tells Tom to send it back at the end of the season so they can get it right.
Here
We See Kenneth Shaking His Head Wondering How He Was Convinced Into Being In
Another Over-Budgeted Piece Of Crap
We then meet our main character Nick Castle (played by Tom Welling).
I’m
Sorry Tom…………..But You Are No Nick Castle.
Especially considering that Nick Castle (yes, John Carpenter named the character after the guy who he had play Michael Myers for 99% of Halloween) was played by Tom Atkins.
Yes,
The Same Tom Atkins Who Would Later Be In Halloween 3
But Tom Atkins spoke and acted like a guy who was very good with the ladies and you could believe as a leading man. Tom Welling, acts and speaks like an unconfident individual who you would guess would be brooding all the damn time, which was basically the same type of performance he gave for Clark Kent in Smallville. So yeah, I would rather have Tom Atkins than Tom Welling.
Anyway, Nick here (with the help of his first mate Spooner)….
AKA
Obligatory Black Comedic Sidekick
They are trying to sell these two fishermen who chartered their boat The Sea Grass about the greatness of Antonio Bay and try to get some money for a good fishing experience. They try to weigh the anchor, but the anchor gets caught. This causes the ship to tip and thankfully, the two were able to avoid the ship capsizing, but they lose some of the fish they catch, which definitely pisses off the fishermen. But the bigger news as the film shows is that what the anchor was caught on was one of those bags that had personal belongings of that ship that caught on fire at the beginning.
When they get the anchor up, the bag busts open.
Oh
by the way during a conversation after the whole incident, we reveal that Nick
here had a relationship with Stevie Wayne. Spooner also reveals that this also
happened while Nick was dating a girl named Elizabeth and wonders what happens
if Stevie blabs, which Nick responds that Elizabeth is 3000 miles away. Nick
drives off and sees the new statue, and has a conversation with Kathy and Tom.
Nick is upset that they are wasting that money on a statue instead of on the
marina, which could use some fixing.
Then we get to meet our title character……..
The
Fog……….
And this is where our biggest problem shows up………the fog is clearly CGI and bad CGI at that. In the original, the fog was a lot of smoke which while not fog…….could look more like fog and is in fact more eerie that well………..what we have in this film.
Meanwhile we have Machen, who is an old man who basically spends his days with his metal detector, hoping to find something that is worth money.
He finds an old pocket watch and as he leaves, water washes away the seaweed which was covering the watch to also reveal….
A
Hand
Of course, Machen never sees the hand so he leaves.
Elsewhere, we see a fisherman (who is Uncle Hank) go to the dock where he hears his dogs barking and finds that one of his dogs has mysteriously died.
What
Happened, You Ask? Well………This Movie I Guess Wants Us To Assume The Fog Killed
It Because This Whole Plot Point Is Never Brought Up Again
Now while not as insulting as what I call Pointless Child Death (where they just kill a kid that is not built up or has no character……….just for cheap shock), killing a dog and having this guy bemoan this and then……..having it never brought up again, that is almost as offensive to me as a viewer.
Back on the road, Nick drives and sees a woman hitchhiking. He stops and how much you want to bet it is Elizabeth.
What
A Shock…………..It Is.
She is of course played by Maggie Grace, who was at the time Shannon Rutherford in Lost. I guess in some ways that is all well and good, but there is no way she will be able to pull off the role as well as her predecessor…………Jamie Lee Curtis, who had just worked with Carpenter and gotten her big break the same way with Halloween.
Yes,
I Know Jamie Was Later On In Halloween: Resurrection.
Anyway, Jamie Lee Curtis was pretty big at that time so Maggie Grace, much like Tom Welling and Selma Blair, is a huge step down from the original. Trust me, we will have more disappointments when compared to the original.
Anyway, Elizabeth is back and she screws with Nick a little bit and mentions that she hasn’t been gone that long. Um…………you have been gone for 6 months without apparently telling anyone or writing anyone, that’s a pretty long time to be gone and do all that. Now while my brother was deployed overseas away from his wife and kid for nearly a year, he made damn sure to check in with them. Elizabeth, you fail!!!!!!
But Elizabeth shows Nick how grateful she is to be back with him by………..
By
Making Out
We then go to the lighthouse to get more radio from Stevie Wayne.
Oh
By The Way, While Her Voice Does Come Up In The Intro, This Is The First Time
We Actually See Her
She talks about there being a low tide and mentions Dan The Weatherman. Now while Selma acts like she is trying to be sultry on the radio, she does not seem to have the voice to convince me so as much as Adrienne Barbeau did. Meanwhile some music is playing and we see the Sea Grass out at sea where Spooner and his friend Sean have commandeered the boat so they can party with some young girls.
The
Girls Names Are Mandi & Jennifer (although Spooner initially calls her
Brandi)
We also immediately find out that Sean is Nick’s cousin. This whole trip was done without Nick’s permission and when he finds out (via the ship not being where it should be), he is not too happy, but what the hell can he do so he decides to hang some more with Elizabeth. Now while Nick is finding this out, Elizabeth has a conversation with Machen who shows her the watch he found. When Elizabeth touches it, the watch mysteriously starts working.
We have a pointless scene where a bell with the name Elizabeth Dane on it starts ringing mysteriously. Meanwhile, Stevie gets a call from Dan The Weatherman who tries to put the moves on her over the phone, but Stevie is not falling for it.
Anyway, Dan reveals why he really called and says that there is a fog bank that is moving against the wind (which is very unusual) so Stevie reports it on the air.
Now let’s go back to Dan The Weatherman (who is played by Jonathon Young). Jonathon was in a films beforehand with rather minor roles, but he is easily a far cry from Charles Cyphers, who played Dan O’Bannon (basically same character, but with a last name. The full name being Carpenter using another guy he used to work with as a name for one of his characters (this time being the screenwriter who worked with John in John Carpenter’s directorial debut Dark Star). Charles Cyphers, for Halloween fans out there, was Sheriff Bracket.
Back on the Sea Grass, Spooner, Sean, Mandi, & Jennifer talk about how they don’t see the fog. Sean tries to start the engine, but it is dead and that is when of course they get attacked by………..
The
Fog.....
The four see it coming and are completely terrified by it.
The fog starts entering the city and through mysteriously breaking windows, they cause Nick and Elizabeth to stop the car. When they wonder what the hell just happened, Father Malone shows up drunk as a skunk basically telling them that they are murderers and says the whole town is filled with murderers. When they ask Father Malone if he saw anything that caused the windows to be busted, Malone says that he saw nothing.
Time for another moment where this version of The Fog proves it’s a poor remake with another actor to actor comparison (which the original is always going to win). Father Malone in this version is played by Adrian Hough, who at this time basically did TV and direct to TV work……..although he did voice Nightcrawler in the 1990s X-Men cartoon. But other than that, there wasn’t much known about him. The original Father Malone was Hal Holbrook, who had memorable roles as Abraham Lincoln in a TV miniseries chronically the life of the 16th president, on stage as Mark Twain, and of course as the enigmatic “Deep Throat” in All The President’s Men.
Back to the movie, it is clear Father Malone is a drunk and the couple just basically brushes him off.
On the boat, everything electronic on the boat breaks which freaks everyone out. Sounds are heard outside the boat and Spooner decides to investigate. He freak out as they see an old ship come out of the fog.
He calls Sean to come out and see this, but by the time Sean gets there, the boat is gone. This of course leaves the two ladies inside and they get killed by………something, as they get propelled through windows and are automatically dead. Something shows up in the shadows of the fog inside the boat, but when the two guys wonder what it is……….a knife gets possessed and launches itself into Sean’s head.
Spooner gets even more scared as he watches Sean fall over and die. The ship gets enveloped by the fog and we hear Spooner scream, so we change scenes to Elizabeth confronting her mother, who is Kathy Williams.
And now let’s get to the difference between the two films as far as the relationship between Elizabeth and Kathy goes. In this version, Elizabeth is Kathy’s daughter. But in the original, Elizabeth is just a hitchhiker coming into town who has no relation at all to Kathy. Of course I’m sure in this version that was done to play off the fact that the role of Elizabeth in the original was played by Jamie Lee Curtis and the role of Kathy in the original was played by Jamie’s mom, Janet Leigh, who was a pretty big actress herself from Psycho.
Yes,
I Know She Was Also In Night Of The Lepus.
So basically it already should be a given that the better performance was given in the original, but let’s go ahead and look at who played Kathy in this version. Kathy was played by Sara Botsford, who was known at the time for being the lead in the TV series that went on for 5 seasons, E.N.G. Yep………it’s a double given on who the better performance goes to.
Anyway, Elizabeth confronts Kathy, who is pretty much a bitch when it comes to your daughter coming home. Kathy wishes Elizabeth called first and she says that house isn’t a hotel. This pisses Elizabeth off who leaves and consoles herself by going to Nick’s house and…….
And
Has Sex With Him In The Shower
And no……..you will not be seeing Maggie Graces’ boobs because this film is PG-13 after all………even though I am watching the supposed Unrated version of the film that was released on DVD. By the way, while the Unrated version is probably more superior to the PG-13 theatrical cut………..it’s not by much as there are some more effects, but the effects are still crap and basically the movie is just made longer.
That night, Elizabeth hears the sound of banging and is woken up by it, which in turn wakes up Nick. Elizabeth explains that she keeps seeing people burning and ends up drowning in her dreams. She of course explains that she has been having them a lot so that is why she came home. He is able to calm her down by saying that they are only just dreams and of course, they go back to bed.
That night, Elizabeth draws the symbol of a balance scale and looks it up on Google to wonder what it means. When she finds a ship hallmark that looks like the weighing scale she was drawing, the computer goes on the fritz and the word Dane is shown.
Hopefully It Is Not Dane Cook
This goes on for a few seconds before the computer just turns off. Suddenly she notices wet footprints on the ceiling.
Lionel Ritchie Will Not Be Pleased
She follows the footprints into the living room and then hears banging at the door, which of course is being caused by a ghost club.
Of
course you can barely see the damn thing so you can blame crappy CGI, which
trust me……..you will get more of.
Elizabeth goes to check on what it is, but nobody is there. She then heads towards the beach, while putting on a sweater because she hears a voice calling her name. She is startled by Nick who comes up from behind to wonder what is going on. She basically doesn’t say anything and the two head back inside.
Elizabeth rides her bike into town and sees the statue. She goes to the town hall and looks up the symbol she saw on her computer.
Meanwhile, Nick meets up with Stevie and we get more hints that they had something going before Elizabeth came back into town. Nick gets a call about his ship not coming back yet and he goes to get Elizabeth and take her with him, to find out what happened to the Sea Grass. Uncle Hank is about to call the coast guard, but Nick advises against it while saying the boat probably anchored up the channel so he will go out and get it. He asks to use Hank’s boat, which Hank has no problem with.
The two find the boat and it appears to be abandoned. However, the two find Sean’s body and also find the body of the two girls, which were hanging off the net.
I
Should Mention That Hank’s Face Looks Worse Every Time He Appears Which
Signifies That He Has Leprosy, Which Makes Me Wonder If This Is Supposed To
Have A Point, Why Would Hank Get It Other Than The Fact That His Dog Died
Earlier.
Tom goes to leave, but before he does so……he tells Nick that when Spooner thaws out, he better have a damn good story about what happened. When everyone leaves, Spooner tells Nick that “The fog killed them”. When Elizabeth asks what he means, Nick reveals that he was able to take a camera away from the boat before the authorities could find it and he tells her to keep it for now.
Meanwhile, we see Stevie enter the lighthouse and begin her radio show. She finds a gift and sees that it is a webcam. When she sets it up, Dan is on the other line asking her if she liked his gift, to which Stevie responds that if she wanted people to see her…she wouldn’t have gone to radio. Or……….maybe you are more comfortable talking on the radio than in front of a camera, but that is just my experience with the medium. Back at Nick’s charter house, Elizabeth is looking at the footage from the camera. It pretty much confirms that Spooner did not kill the three others…………….so how much you want to bet this somehow gets lost and/or destroyed.
Of
Course…………..
Elizabeth gets knocked out for a second, but is able to wake up before she drowns. Oh but she gets caught in a freaking net.
Hey,
I Caught Myself A Maggie Grace
Elizabeth is able to get out of the net and when she goes to get back onto dry land, she finds a journal that was hidden in the walls.
This
Is God………..Please Stop Making This Crappy Remake
Stevie
immediately grabs a fire extinguisher and puts out the fire. She then sees that
the fire does not act like what a normal fire acts like and instead of burning
everything, it only burns marks onto the pieces of paper.
Too
Busy Watching Jeopardy
So when she asks what Stevie said, Andy lies and then asks to go onto the beach, which Connie is okay with.
We then get a shot that shows that the CGI Fog is coming back before we go to the church, Elizabeth looks for Father Malone. She of course finds him at the graveyard drinking. Elizabeth shows Father Malone the diary and after a few minutes, Father Malone tells her that she really should get off the island. We then get flashback footage to reveal that the ghost ship that we have seen in the past was called the Elizabeth Dane.
At the hospital, the mayor grills Spooner about what happened on the boat while Nick watches. Elizabeth wants to speak with Nick, but Nick says now is not the best time since it appears Spooner is in a lot of trouble. While waiting outside, Elizabeth looks at Sean’s body and then turns away. When she goes over to look at the other bodies, Sean’s corpse awakens.
At a bar, Nick tries to calm Elizabeth down with some alcohol. Elizabeth doesn’t think Nick believes her, but the guy actually makes good points by saying all the crap that he is going through right now so what does she want him to do. Elizabeth then explains that it isn’t just her as Father Malone is planning on leaving the island and she tells him that the footage shows that Spooner was innocent. When Nick asks her about the camera, she explains that she lost it, but shows the diary that she found. They then look at the family photos where they were living in shacks before 1871 where the town miraculously appears, which makes them wonder what happened to cause the town to be created in one year’s time. Another flashback shows up that shows the four founding fathers of the town speaking to each other and agreeing on what they about to do (whatever that is). They then sail out to sea and that is all of the flashback we get for now.
Back at the hospital, Spooner has escaped, which definitely does not help his case for not committing the murders. We get another scene with Machen as he sees an entire table with chairs and dinnerware on the sand.
Appears
Someone Wanted To Have A Candlelight Dinner On The Beach………How Romantic…
Of course that moment is ruined by the chandelier that has also washed up onto the beach.
Okay,
Now This Is Strange
Machen’s metal detector then goes off as he finds an anchor held by a rope buried in the sand. Machen (wondering what is at the other end) goes out to see to see what is at the other end. Of course this drags him underwater as the fog approaches. Of course, Andy sees this buffoonery and is now terrified.
Personally
I Think Machen Just Lost To Darwin
Andy then tries to outrun the fog. And yet somehow Andy is able to get back into the house before the fog can get to him. Connie then closes the door behind Andy and they both see the fog surround the house with them inside as well as parts of the town. Meanwhile back at the lighthouse, Stevie gets news from Dan that another fog bank is coming into the area and it has already surrounded his post. The power then goes out at Dan’s place, but the computer still works (which he chalks up to batteries). Dan then hears huge bangs on his door and Dan decides to investigate, despite Stevie being against it. Dan goes outside and of course, the fog gets him, but I blame it on Dan and here is why. Dan drops the oil lamp on himself and catches on fire. Then of course the fog throws him throw him back inside, but the fire kills him.
Stevie immediately calls her own house and before she can say anything, the phone cuts out. Outside of the town center, Kathy is giving a speech about how this whole town owes a debt of gratitude to the four men who founded Antonio Bay. Of course the speech is cut short as power goes out throughout the town. Back to Andy and Connie, Connie tells Andy that they better close all the windows. While Connie is gone to close all the windows in Stevie’s room, Andy looks out and states that the fog wants them for some reason.
Back at the town center, we hear Kathy tell everyone that the lights should be back on soon while Nick & Elizabeth comment how it is strange to have a power outage at this time. However, Tom makes the ultimate decision that it is best if everyone just went home. At the lighthouse, Stevie says that there is an emergency going on and she needs someone to check on her son. Nick hears this and tells Elizabeth they need to head to the house. Oh and she does the line “There Is Something In The Fog” which if you have watched the original is a very memorable line and in this one, it is just jumbled in there with the rest of her dialogue.
Stevie then immediately gets into her car and heads towards her house. While driving there, Elizabeth reads Nick the diary. She reveals a character named William Blake who had a proposition for the town folks and that was to set up a colony at the other side of the island. We see more flashback footage of the Elizabeth Dane and her crew
I
Will Give This Film Small Credit In The Makeup For The People Suffering From
Leprosy Looks Very Good.
Back at the house, we see Connie washing the dishes when she notices smoke coming from the drain. Oh no, it’s this death. It’s the one death of the two deaths that pissed me off with this film because they made no sense with the rest of the film. Here we go……..
Connie looks at the sink to figure out what is going on and a hand grabs her.
I
Should Also Add The CGI In This Transformation Is Atrocious
The ghosts in the fog don’t kill anyone like this again. They mostly just kill the people by possessing objects and using them for murder (although I guess you could count the fucking dog as how they did this, but even then………you don’t see this shit happen to the dog and the fog is definitely not even nearby when it happens). This film is my second most offensive death because of how stupid it is done, but there is one more death that is worse and we will get to that crap later.
Meanwhile, Stevie (in her own car) has her car stop for some reason and her car gets engulfed into the fog bank.
Stevie is scared by the fog and suddenly, a truck comes by and knocks her off the road and into the water.
Back to the film and we have Stevie wake up when the car is overflowing with water and while she is trying to escape, we get our first shot of the CGI ghosts.
Oh
God, That Is The Haunting Remake Levels Of Bad CGI
Stevie is able to escape thanks to a door that just so happened to be open and is able to survive. Back at the house, Andy makes the gruesome discovery of Connie’s corpse. Andy runs into his room and locks the door. The fog enters the house and we see banging on his door. But luckily for Andy, Nick has shown up and breaks a window, allowing Andy to escape before the fog can get to him. But not before we see another crappy CGI ghost.
Dude,
I Know This Movie Is Painful………..But This Will Be Over Very Soon
They get into the truck (not the one that ran Stevie down mind you) and escape. We also see Nick run over one of the ghosts.
Even
These Ghosts Are Filled With Crap
Meanwhile we see Spooner at the docks waiting for the ferry to get him off this island and of course Father Malone is also there. Of course the ghost ship shows up and both of them decide to get the hell out of dodge. The truck that carried Nick, Elizabeth, and Andy runs into a conveniently placed boat that yes, we will never talk about again.
While recovering, Elizabeth has more dreams about the Elizabeth Dane and we see the four founding fathers of Antonio Bay coming onto the ship. While Blake is reading the contract for the half of the island, one of the founding fathers decides to pull a gun on Blake. They say to Blake that he will give them all of the gold and the Elizabeth Dane will escape with their wretched lives. Blake is upset with this betrayal.
When Elizabeth wakes up, she is met by Nick and Andy. They meet Hank who is in full leprosy mode and when they ask him to come with them, Hank says he can’t because he needs to find his dogs as they are all that he has left. Hank goes into the fog and we hear a scream signifying his death. We do see that there are ghosts in the fog and this causes the three to leave.
They meet Stevie, who is happy to see that her son is still alive. When they enter the town hall, Elizabeth sees the statue and we see the flashback of all that happens with the Elizabeth Dane. The founding fathers rob the Elizabeth Dane, lock the people into the cabins, and set the ship ablaze. The lepers are all burned to death and in some cases, drown.
When that flashback is over, Nick, Elizabeth, Stevie, & Andy are all greeted by Kathy and Tom. Spooner and Father Malone also join. There Elizabeth tells her mother and the mayor what the founding fathers did. Of course the two who have profited most by this town don’t see why they are suffering for the sins of their father and when Father Malone confirms the truth, Tom calls him a liar. Outside we see the ghosts have come.
Oh
Trust Me, This Is Going To Suck
Broken glass surrounds Father Malone and stabs him.
Anyway, Father Malone dies. The ghost comes in and grabs Tom and drags him all the way to the graveyard.
Or
Force Pushes Him All The Way There, Who Cares?
Once at the graveyard, Tom sees that he is surrounded by all of the ghosts.
The ghosts then all go away, leaving Nick heartbroken.
Do you really want to know why this is stupid? Well, here it goes. In no (and I repeat NO) other movie that I know of has a kiss transformed one person into a ghost. We’ve see ghosts come out of a person during a kiss and the body dies or whatever, but we have never see a person be human one moment……but after a kiss, turn into a fucking ghost. Do you want to know why? Because as far as matter is concerned, IT MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE!!!! Bodies are always around and buried. Bodies don’t just evaporate into a fucking ghost.
I remember watching this in the theater and this was months before I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis so at the time, I really wasn’t the best judge of what was good so I was willing to forgive the whole Connie death, but this……………….even at that point in my life, I said bullshit. That pissed me off more than anything. So you want to know what made me hate this movie……………..there is your moment.
In
Fact, This Scene Just Shows Them Smirking At Me, Knowing They Created A
Bullshit Death
But the movie isn’t over as after all of that, we see Stevie at her radio station in the lighthouse (with her son there) trying to explain about what happened as people try to move on with their lives and warn us that this could happen again. They don’t know why this happened and quite honestly, we as the audience don’t know why this happened.
In the original, the ship was sunk by a false fire (lit by the founding fathers) that they thought was the lighthouse (with the fog they couldn’t tell) and caused their ship to crash on the rocks. That was a 100 years ago and when the present hit for the centennial, the ghosts come back to get their revenge.
In the remake, its 120 years after the boat was burned (which the fog only served as a background for instead of being one of the reasons the ship sunk) so it makes no sense to choose then other than………..the statue was being made, Elizabeth was coming back, and the Sea Grass’ anchor had opened the bags hiding the remaining souvenirs from the ship. You see how basically just random all that shit happening at the same time is. It’s basically the biggest of coincidences for the ghosts to show up.
Now since the movie is over, I guess we need to talk about the aftermath. For the movie itself, it got number one in the box office, but as many experts had pointed out, with the money it made….it could be contributed to not many people going to the theaters that week. In fact, if this movie had opened a year earlier at the same time and gotten the same money………..it would have finished fifth.
Now it is time for the aftermath of the actors. Tom Welling, with this crap and Cheaper By The Dozen 2, proved that he was not a movie actor and was stuck doing Smallville because no more movie acting gigs came his way. Maggie Grace was screwed for a while by being stuck in Direct To DVD films before getting a big break by playing the kidnapped daughter of Liam Neeson’s character in Taken. Selma Blair has basically been stuck with the Hellboy franchise and not much else as far as big movies go.
But saddest of all would have to go to Debra Hill, who was the producer to this film and worked a lot with John Carpenter in many of his films. A few months before this film was even released to theaters, Debra Hill lost her battle with cancer at the age of 54. She contributed to a film a year later directed by Oliver Stone called World Trade Center, but this was the last film she was able to work with John Carpenter as they both were producers for this film.
Now let’s talk about how god awful this remake is. The film suffers from many problems. The acting is horrible, mainly because the actors are basically younger actors who were so miscast as replacements for the originals. Seriously, you look at the original cast, then look at this movie and just scratch your head as to what they were thinking. The script was abysmal, several times bringing things into the film only to be quickly dropped like it never happened. The special effects are horrendous abominations compared to the original. The original believed in a more “what you can’t see may be more terrifying that what you can” while this version believed in a “show everything” approach which rarely works. When people talk about how remakes are terrible these days and how they are ruining cinema, this is the poster child for that logic and honestly you can see why.
Well, that is all for this year so I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (and a merry whatever denomination you believe in at this time of). Join me next year in January as we induct the GINO Award Winner which signifies the worst movie to come out this year.