The Fog

This new Fog floats in on the fumes of the 1980 John Carpenter original, but the surprise is that it's arguably better.

This new Fog floats in on the fumes of the 1980 John Carpenter original, but the surprise is that it's arguably better.

Mildly scary here and there. It does not play by all the horror movie rules (e.g., the black guy always dies first). And the cast is good-looking.

Unfortunately, interest lags between the grisly deaths, and, worse, none of the characters generates rooting interest.

Mildly scary here and there. It does not play by all the horror movie rules (e.g., the black guy always dies first). And the cast is good-looking.

If the characters were more interesting, the long, long buildup to their night of ghostly reckoning might be suspenseful rather than tedious.

Making concessions at every turn to the youth-horror market, the film slashes the ages of its protagonists by some 15 years, and its IQ follows suit.

Making concessions at every turn to the youth-horror market, the film slashes the ages of its protagonists by some 15 years, and its IQ follows suit.

I was held in suspense throughout The Fog, aching to learn the answer to its central riddle: Why would any one remake such a crummy movie?

The fog also does something genuinely eerie: It causes everyone in the cast to deliver dreadful performances and display inappropriate reactions when their friends are drowned, burned, stabbed or thrown into glass display cases.