By Stephen Pytak 

     Like the original, the remake of "The Fog" is
a disappointment.
     Hard to believe something with a premise this
good could misfire twice.
     There are a few good ideas at work in this new
version. And some of the special effects are top notch.
I wish Carpenter had the technology to employ back
in 1980.
     The spectres from beyond were the best part of
this flick.
     The story's a little different from the first go 
around. 
     The ghosts this time around are given a little
more personification. Here they're a community 
of lepers who were promised land by a group of 
settlers, then betrayed, robbed and burned alive
on their ship, Elizabeth Dane.
     Funny. There's a character in this film named
Elizabeth as there was in the original. In 1980 she
was played by Jamie Lee Curtis. This time around
it's Maggie Grace. Maybe there's something to it...
     The ghosts come back for the community's
centennial, riding on a mysterious fog bank, just
as they did in Carpenter's film. 
     They look a lot better. And they have some unique
powers. They can use the force and make objects,
like daggers, fly around. They can pop out of your
garbage disposal. And if they touch you, you're as
good as gone.
     But even though they have all of that going for
them, they're not quite as scary as the ones John, 
Debra and make-up man Rob Bottin cooked up 25 
years ago.
     They bang on stuff like the old ones did, and
stuff like that. But they don't quite have that 
Carpenter touch, that psychotic subtlety which means,
if nothing else, I'm going to get you one way or 
another.
     There are a few other changes here and there.
There are a few new twists and turns. No big deal
really.
     Selma Blair is a great "Stevie Wayne," the sexy
single mom dee jay who broadcasts from a light
house. She gets a decent and unexpected action
scene, which will make an audience jump first time
out.
     The first, and definitive "Stevie" is Adrienne 
Barbeau. She also got a decent action scene in the
first "Fog." It was the crawl to the top of the light
house while being pursued by a zombie ghosts 
carrying a sickle.
     Both films featured an ensemble cast. Both 
have difficulty managing it. I mean, Carpenter at
least got some decent performances out of his cast.
This time, we have some good actors, but there are
not show-stopping moments or memorable lines.
     In the original, almost everything John Houseman
said in the opening was quoteable: "Eleven fifty-five.
Almost midnight. Enough time for one more story..."
     In the new one, the only thing I remember was
something Tom Welling, who played "Nick Castle,"
said: "Here, I'm the Skipper. And you're Gilligan."
     I think there was an effort to try to make this
story work on screen, while paying incredible
homage to the original.
     Speaking of homages, there's a quote from Poe
at the top of Carpenter's film: "Is all that we see or
seem but a dream within a dream?"
     In the remake, one of the characters, Maggie
Grace's "Elizabeth," is having dreams. Not a bad
homage now that I think about it.
     But the remake doesn't cut it. Maybe it's the 
director. The only thing I remember Rupert 
Wainwright doing was "Stigmata." Maybe the studio
saw that film and some genius there thought, "Hey,
maybe this guy could direct the new 'Fog!'"
    The score for the original was done by Carpenter
and his musical group The Coupe De Villes. At 
times it kind of sounds like a wind or something that's
exhaling.
      The score for the remake is by Grame Revell. At
certain times it kind of sounds like wind or something
that's inhaling.
     It's not too bad. Varese Sarabande is doing the
CD, so I'll probably pick it up and give it a spin to
hear how it sounds isolated from the film. 
     I'm not a big Revell fan. Sometimes he does O.K.
Earlier this year he scored the remake of another
Carpenter film, "Assault on Precinct 13."
     I dunno. Comparing the two films is something
Carpenter enthusiasts will do for generations to
come. Myself included. Perhaps a commentary track
with the filmmakers of this new incarnation will
lift some of the pessimism some Carpenter purists
will have toward it. 
     I'm sure some of them tossed their Cokes at the 
screen.