More than any other Horror/Thriller, this is the film that is most often associated with atmosphere. Evoking the creepy chill of a good campfire tale, The Fog’s vibes are intoxicating, putting sumptuous use to the anamorphic widescreen framing. Carpenter smoothly balances several characters and storylines, without Robert Altman’s approach of heaping everyone on top of each other. The picture is a classy, expert study in the creation of mood and the power of location photography. For ninety minutes, it feels as if the mist coming out of the sea is going to also come through one’s television. The suspense and potential are so great the finale can’t possibly live up to it, and it doesn’t. However, the visuals in that section have a nightmarish quality all their own. The synthesizer-based music score by Carpenter is eerie and hard to forget, matching the film’s subject matter and tone just as the score for Halloween did.
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