Okay, so the other night Jeanne and I went to see The Fog.

We sometimes like to see scary movies, and had hoped that this might be one.

Wrong. In fact, not just ‘wrong’, but ‘horrible, amazingly, what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you-people?’ wrong.

Okay, I’m just gonna rant for a minute here:

How the hell does someone get that kind of money, and make a movie that lousy? I mean, do you know the kind of stories I could tell with that kind of money?

SCRIPT:
“Was there a single line of original, interesting or moving dialogue in the movie”, you may be asking…the answer would be “NO.”
“Was the story interesting, engaging, mildly believable even under the ‘we’re watching a horror movie’ caveat”? Again, NO
I am amazed – simply amazed – that even in the 21st century, filmmakers fall back on the “let’s have the pretty girl open the basement door and go down there, even though she’s unarmed, alone, and knows there’s a man with giant razors for arms down there” cliche. Oh. My. God. I mean, in this movie, she hears horrible banging when there should be none, then her computer flips out and fries itself, then she SEES FOOTSTEPS APPEARING ON HER CEILING!!! Wet, ghostly footsteps, seeping through the ceiling one at a time as some unseen thing walks through the upstairs. Then a horrible pounding on her front door – so what does she do? Puts on a cardigan (since she is of course in only t-shirt and panties) and goes outside. Into a fog that she can’t see through. And then she, for no apparent reason whatsoever, walks down to the edge of the sea. There are pounding noises and dripping ghostly footprints on your fucking ceiling – put on some pants and pick up a weapon – or maybe even yell for the guy who is sleeping in your bed, and wake him up!! And this was only one of about 6 times in the movie that this happens!

Selma Blair is in a head on collision with a semi that’s going way fast, through the fog. Her car is flipped end over end and flung off a cliff into the ocean, where it sinks…then a ghostly leper (TM) appears to grab her foot as she tries to swim to the surface. The ghostly leper ™ loses it’s grip (?!?!?) and she makes it to the surface; apparently this is enough for the ghostly leper ™ as it doesn’t chase her again. She swims to safety. At no point do we care, because this is so late in the movie that it’s been made clear to us that the whole thing sucks.

And what the hell is the end of the movie? I mean, she decides “Hey, this town sucks, and NYC wasn’t a good fit; I’m gonna kiss the ghostly leper and go away with him.”?? Wha??? And sadly, this whole other part of the movie; the part called the beginning and the middle, sucked too!

I mean, who writes these? Who directs these?

ACTING/DIRECTION
Okay, Selma Blair was pretty good, and Tom Welling almost held his own. Unfortunately, many of his scenes were with Maggie Grace. Now, she’s pretty and looks good in her bikini on Lost. But, even on that show she’s clearly the ‘weak link’ actor. And in this movie, she proves that she only has 4 facial expressions. Not only that, but she’s clearly UNCLEAR about which one means what, and when she should be using them. And again, the director was NO HELP whatsoever to her or anyone else in the film.
The kid who played Selma Blairs son was okay, had a genuine scary moment.
What the hell was up with “Aunt Connie”? Could that character have been less interesting, more woodenly acted, or more useless?
At any point, was anyone who got killed a surprise? Or even viewed as a loss?
Wait, better question: Did you at any point FEEL anything good about a character?! Mostly I felt like I wanted to get more popcorn, and sneak into a showing of Serenity.

There was a crazy guy in the movie. Beachcomber kinda “local loonie”; get’s pulled into the waves and killed.
A priest gets killed.
The mayor gets killed.
Aunt Connie gets fried by poorly CGI’d Ghostly Leprosy ™.
No one in the theatre cared.
Why?
Cuz they were acted so poorly, and written so poorly, that we wanted them to die anyway. It was a relief, because we figured the sooner everyone got killed off, the sooner this fucking thing would end.

We were pretty sure the director liked the fog effect: We only cut to the fog every time there was a transition, pause in the action, some scary music, or when Maggie made face #2. Also used the fog to build tension whenever the script, acting, dialogue or music was failing to do that. The fog didn’t really add to the tension, either, but since it’s in the title it was nice to see it EVERY 6 SECONDS. Unfortunately, every single interior shot of the fog was such a crappy effect that you could almost see the guy around the corner of the hallway with the big hose blowing it into the room.

And, I think it was nice that the director/screenwriter didn’t bother keeping the story…y’know…interesting or anything. I mean, way too many movies are made with those outdated things like “throughlines” and “storylines” and the like…if you make a movie like this, it’s BETTER, because that way if the reels of the film are accidentally shown out of order, no one will really notice or care.

MISCELLANEOUS Pointless things in the script that had no purpose or interest, or were stupid, or any combination therein:
Tom Welling’s character is sleeping with Selma Blair’s…but he’s dating Maggie Grace’s, and feels no remorse about cheating.
Maggie Grace’s character and her mom don’t get along.
Tom’s crewman gets blamed for the first couple of murders committed by…the Fog…we’re supposed to care, I think…
There’s a statue of the founding fathers being raised in town this weekend.
Maggie’s character is in the morgue (still unclear why) and a dead body comes to life to talk to her. No one else minds the dead guy on the floor.
Tom and Maggie have a tedious, uneventful shower/sex scene that just made me sleepy. In fact, she looked sleepy during most of it. I think that’s facial expression #3 for her. Sadly, it’s very similar to Numbers 1, 2 and 4. *sigh*

I’m done. I’m done, not ranting anymore. Still more there, but I just don’t have the energy. Gotta go to sleep.

PLEASE, go enjoy Serenity before it leaves the theatres. You’ll have fun. You won’t wanna yell at the screen, or get more popcorn just because it’s an excuse to not watch 6 minutes of the film.

*sigh*