The Fog (2005)

I like a good horror story. Not a slasher flick or a gore-fest-- good horror (suspense and frights as opposed to shocks and startles). I enjoyed the original The Fog. It is not a great horror piece, but it had most of the qualities I enjoyed. Some of the images from it, like the decaying hand holding the fish hook and knocking on the door as the fog swirls all around, stuck with me. It has a surprisingly strong story, too; it gives you just enough to follow the reason for the haunting and why the boat people are killing townsfolk.

Cut to last night. I watched the 2005 remake starring Tom Welling and Maggie Grace. Not one person in the movie had any chemistry with any other. Maggie Grace's Elizabeth is pivotal to the story, yet it is never really explained why she is seeing visions. Plus, she just doesn't pull off the "appear to be insane even though you are the only one who is figuring out what REALLY is going on" schtick. There is one character who is suspected of the first three known murders, yet once he leaps out the window and escapes the hospital he's in, that is never brought up. Which is probably good, because the actor wasn't conveying anything remotely sympathetic or dastardly to pull off that role. Don't even get me started on the alcoholic priest who is so unconvincing his "pivotal" scenes where he sets Elizabeth on the right path to discover made me chuckle out loud.

Matter of fact, I think the poor quality of the acting can be summed up thusly: they were a bunch of actors reading lines at the camera instead of characters speaking naturally. That seems to be the biggest difference between quality acting and poor acting-- in one, the person IS the character and you are submersed in the story and what they say sounds believable in the context of the story/action around them. A bad actor is just spitting out lines that don't seem to have any meaning or context within the story

They took a pretty decent story and added to it and changed who the main characters were. They added some decent effects, but nothing to warrant a new version of the movie. And the ghost effects at the end were less than wonderful.

SPOILER (not really, as you shouldn't watch this movie even on an edited TV version, but I am giving away the ending)
In the original The Fog, Hal Holbreck's priest figures out what is going on from the old journal that is found and realizes the solid gold cross the church has is made from the gold the founding fathers stole and murdered the crew of the Elizabeth Dane for to build their town. He sacrifices himself for the town and gives back the gold.

In this one, Elizabeth is supposed to come to the startling realization that she is the wife of the captain of the Elizabeth Dane and lead ghost and sacrifices herself and becomes a ghost, saving the town. However, the problem with this is that the ghosts swore "blood for blood" against the four men who killed them all and stole their money. It seems like they are attacking anyone who is either related to those four men or who has profited from their booty. Yet, when Elizabeth kisses the lead ghost and becomes a ghost herself (with no explanation of how/why), the ghosts let their revenge go even tho descendants still live and their gold and artifacts are still spread throughout the town. So it doesn't make much sense. Also, the found journal in this version is barely read, hardly discussed, and is not the pivotal piece of information it is supposed to be; in the original, as the priest reads the journal, things happen and it leads to a natural conclusion of him figuring out what the town founders did and how he can redress the problem. In this one, it is a throw away plot device that hardly matters.

All in all, this is a crappy remake. I had low expectations going in and it managed to come in below all of them consistently.

Grade: F (and I rarely give Fs)