The Fog

Antonio Bay is celebrating its centenary. A glowing fog rolls in from the sea carrying the crew of a ship the town's founders deliberately wrecked for its gold.

Carpenter shot it, hated the result, and reshot roughly a third of it, adding gore and the opening ghost story on the beach. That fix is why the film opens as well as it does.

It is a ghost story rather than a slasher and it is built almost entirely from atmosphere: fog machines, a lighthouse radio station, Adrienne Barbeau alone in a booth narrating the town's own destruction to it.

Jamie Lee Curtis and her mother Janet Leigh are both in it and share no scenes of consequence.

Carpenter's synth score is one of his best and does more work than the ghosts do.