The Fog (1980) - Limited Edition Steelbook 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray [4K UHD]

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They rarely make them like this anymore. This is a classic ghost story come to life and put on film from the team of John Carpenter and Debra Hill who brought us the immortal "Halloween" in 1978 and features many of the original cast and crew from that film and other John Carpenter/Debra Hill alums like Jamie Lee Curtis, the sexy and underrated Nancy Loomis, (who appeared in Carpenter's "Assault On Precinct 13" (1976) and Halloween (1978), Charles Cyphers, cinematographer Dean Cundey, production designer and film editor Tommy Lee Wallace, etc. This is a classic, straight forward ghost story and revenge tale set to moody and haunting music from John Carpenter, once again providing a haunting theme song and atmospheric musical score and soundtrack like he did in his two previous films, Halloween (1978) and Assault On Precinct 13 (1976). This "horror" movie is scary enough with its suspense and good dialogue and creepy plot, unlike nowadays this film doesn't need unnecessary amounts of gore,profanity, torture porn, etc. to compensate for bad actors and third-rate screenplays and directors.Don't even bother wasting your time with the absolutely ludicrous 2005 re-make. Just like Halloween and Assault On Precinct 13, John Carpenter's original versions like "The Fog" are the ones worth watching and re-watching over and over again.The film also stars Carpenter's then-wife Adrienne Barbeau (whom I met once at a book signing and lecture, a really nice and wonderful lady) looking sexy and giving a great performance. Also in the movie veteran actor Hal Holbrook as the guilt-ridden Father Malone, Tom Atkins playing hero "Nick Castle" (another John Carpenter inside joke, his USC film school buddy Nick Castle played Michael Myers in his 1978 Halloween), a spooky cameo by veteran actor John Houseman in the moody prologue scene, and former Hollywood golden age actress,mother of Jamie Lee Curtis and star of the original Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" (1960) Janet Leigh in a wonderful appearance.Also for once, John Carpenter allowed his friend and sexy actress Nancy Loomis to survive the rampage of the attacking ghosts by the end of this movie unlike her two previous Carpenter outings like Halloween and Assault On Precinct 13 where her sexy and attractive but doomed character of Annie Brackett is killed by being stabbed by Michael Myers in the neck and having her body displayed on a bed under Judith Myers' original tombstone in Halloween or her terrified but scheming tight-sweater-clad police station secretary damsel-in-distress Julie being shot in the breasts by a stray silencer pistol bullet from the marauding evil street gang laying siege to the isolated and cut off police station and her body is shown in close-up lying on the floor in a pool of blood with her eyes wide open and a bullet hole perforating from her tight sweater and bosom in Assault On Precinct 13 and sad,tragic,haunting music playing in the background.There are too many good things about "The Fog" I like and Carpenter's other films to list and describe here. The visual style, the sets and locations, mood, suspense, music, atmosphere, cast, everything. The one thing of note that owners of this movie and those who record it on TV and cable and those who rent it online or whatever is a hilarious, bizarre, and as of this date unexplained inside joke from the filmmakers and writers of "The Fog" in one of the opening and key scenes. I stumbled upon this hidden and previously unknown inside joke quite by accident upon a recent re-viewing.In the beginning of the film where Hal Holbrook's character of Father Malone first discovers the secret journal of his grandfather hidden in the walls of the old church, he examines the book and skims through the lost book's pages until he stops at a section where the pages clearly say "Midnight 'Til One Belongs To The Dead." Well, the book is obviously a movie prop, and a clever one at that. Rewind the scene, put it into slow-motion and pause the screen when you see Holbrook's character skim through the pages and he briefly stops at a page with some random writings on it before he gets to the "Midnight "Til One" page. Some of the writings are undecipherable and full of hard-to-read handwriting,, but some are clearly visible and readable and contain some interesting and humorous, scathing, profanity-laden expletives inside jokes and thoughts on the part of whoever wrote it. John Carpenter maybe? He has a wicked sense of humor and it wouldn't surprise me. As of yet, I've tried to obtain information on various multimedia sites about this little-known inside joke in the movie but haven't heard anything yet. Who else knows about this?

THE FOG is an awesome horror flick that was released in the Winter of 1980 that scared me when I saw it for the first time on HBO back in March of 1981 when I was only 8 years old practically making me afraid of the fog in general, since you cant see through the fog very well in real-life, except in John Carpenter's masterpiece of THE FOG was kind of like an upgrade of Carpenters 1978 flick HALLOWEEN, since the Michael Myers character seemed to have inspired Carpenter to make this movie THE FOG.Additionally; THE FOG brings with it the souls of the dammed. Fog is nothing new to the quaint seaside village of Antonio Bay, but on the night of its 100th anniversary, a fogbank rolls in unlike any other. Eerie lights, dark figures, and the masts of an ancient schooner appear in the swirling mists, and soon the specters of long-murdered sailors descend upon the town.Using knife, hook and sword, they exact revenge for sins committed by the town's founding fathers, leaving horrified survivors struggling to solve a hundred-year crime. And they must solve it - or die. Starring Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Houseman, Janet Leigh and Hal Holbrook.John Carpenter's THE FOG is classic horror at its terrifying best and I've noticed that THE FOG had many co-stars from other John Carpenter flicks like*Jamie-Lee Curtis(Elizabeth Solly) who is known for her role as the hapless victim(Laurie Strode)in HALLOWEEN who also gets to co-star with her real-life mother(Janet Leigh)known for her role as Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO*Tom Atkins(Nick Castle)known for his role as Rehme in the 1981 action packed drama John Carpenter's ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK & as Jim Rockford's skeptical nemesis(Lt. Diehl)on THE ROCKFORD FILES*Nancy Loomis(Sandy Fadel) known as Laurie's snotty girlfriend(Annie Brackett)in HALLOWEEN*Adrianne Barbeau(Stevie Wayne) known for her role as Brain's girlfriend(Maggie) in ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK*Charles Cyphers(Dan)known for his role as the concerned, but overwhelmed(Sheriff Lee Brackett)in HALLOWEEN & as the skeptical Secretary of the State in ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK.Therefore, it seemed like John Carpenter's THE FOG had just about every co-star that was in HALLOWEEN, except for Donald Pleasance and PJ Soles.I also think HALLOWEEN & THE FOG were probably Carpenters best flicks of all time, especially Carpenters best horror flicks along with the fact that THE FOG had a lot of interesting special effects like the glowing fog and the make-up used on the dead pirate ghosts, etc., plus I liked the eerie creepy heart-pumping music scoring that John Carpenter did in this movie, just like the music composing he did in HALLOWEEN, THE THING, & ESCAPE FROM N.Y.What I can't help finding kind of odd was THE FOG was actually about a bunch of dead pirate ghosts hidden in the fog setting their sites on a small remote town near Antonio Bay killing people to retrieve their lost cross from a church, which was supposedly the only thing that could get rid of the ghosts who were fogging up the town turning this community upside down, but I was baffled at the end of this movie when the ghosts who were THE FOG returned to the church later on to kill Father Malone(Hal Holbrook) leaving us a cliffhanger making us wonder if those dead pirate ghosts were going to continue or return later to murder more people to get what they wanted.As a matter of fact, the cliffhanger at the end of THE FOG was a tad similar to the cliffhangers end of the movie HALLOWEEN, since Carpenter used the same kind of strategy by keeping us wondering what else Michael Myers was going to do next in HALLOWEEN, since Michael obviously didn't die at the end of HALLOWEEN even though Michael fell off the balcony after being shot 6 times by his psychatrist Dr. Loomis(Donald Pleasance).In addition, I would have to say that THE FOG and HALLOWEEN are my 2 favorite John Carpenter films.This movie also takes me all the way back to memory lane to the days when I was living in hometown(El Centro, CA) where I was raised at since I was 7 years old and living in the Imperial Valley at the time when THE FOG was released in the theaters back in February of 1980.