Hello and welcome back to another bonus episode of 80s all over. I am your co-host, Scott Weinberg, and of course I am always joined by my wonderful co-host, Drew McQueenie. I am also here, yes. Drew, we are here to record an audio commentary for our listeners for The Fog, and the simplest way to sync everyone up is to have them pause the film on the Edgar Allan Poe quote that comes right before the title. Yep. 20-something seconds in. You'll see it as soon as that quote comes up, just pause. Right there. And now, and all right, so you've done that because you can pause the cut podcast while you're doing it, of course. So what we'll do is now we're going to count down three, two, one, go. And then you hit play or unpause whatever you whatever your religion calls it and then we go forward. So if you're looking at the Edgrahlan Poe quote. I am. Now we're going to count down three, two, one, unpause. Unpause. Okay. So go, Drew, you were at the Edgrahlan Poe quote. You have anything insightful to add about Edgar Allan Poe? Not about Edgar Allan Poe. I think, I think it's funny though, how just in one generation, the whole generation in Carpenter and Dante and all those guys, Edgar Allan Poe is a huge touchstone to them. I don't think younger horror fans now are taught Poe. So I think there's a generation that kind of doesn't get him anymore. And I don't think they have the same reference point. Yeah, it's just a great quote. And I hate to jump to a simple jump scare, but John Halsman closing that little stop, that little pocket watch that if you listen to that, if you listen to that in separately, it's ridiculously loud. There's no way that pocket watch would be that loud. It's hilarious. I love to use a houseman here because even though he's not in the rest, his voice is such a great voice for this kind of fireside ghost story. Yeah, the idea that somebody got him to do just one and it's a perfect one is really lovely. Yeah, what I really like about this movie is how they were able to get Tom Welling and Maggie Grace, two of television's biggest stars to combine. I think you might be watching the different version that I'm watching. Oh, is there a no version of the fog? I was wondering why you wanted to do a 2005 horror. Yeah, I think I think you've got something that couldn't be related to this film Okay, we will the I had to I wrote that joke and I I thought I would keep bring coming back to it But then I realized it in order to keep coming back to this joke I had to rewatch that remake and let me tell you something Drew. How else I'm doing that? Yeah, I don't blame that.

That is, you know me, man, even with movies that I adore, I'm open and I know you are. I'm open to the idea of a remake. You know, you say to me, a filmmaker is going to give another, give the fog another shake. Shake, my brain doesn't jump to how dare they, it's holy, it's sacred. My attitude is cool, who's doing it?

You know, like I'm down, make a remake.

You know, you're not replacing a film that I love, you're just making a remake.

And... How dare they, it's holy, it's sacred. My attitude is cool, who's doing it? You know, like, I'm down, make a remake. You know, you're not replacing a film that I love. You're just making a remake. And so I'm not, I was a little skeptical and kind of down on the idea of the, the, the fog remake, but I walked in relatively open-minded, I think, and pooh. I was, I was working with Carpenter when that was in production and I remember asking him when the title first came up. Hey, so you're doing the fog and he went, oh no, no, I'm not doing it. And I said, oh, are you involved? And he shook his head and I said, oh, it's going to be good. And he shook his head. Yeah, let's set about it the entire time. Let's just leave it with this. The fog would have been a fine movie to remake if you didn't try and do it like super fast in a hurry in between three people's different television production schedules because it really was just slapped together really poorly. So, you know. I think the original film, one of the things that is interesting about the fog to me is how it's not a towering accomplishment in Carpenter's Murphy. It's a nice little movie that kind of works and you can see the scenes where like there's two different films than when they made it. We'll get to those moments. But both of those, I'm okay with. I think you made both versions of it pretty well without it ever being great. Right. Right. Right now we're looking at him pulling his camera up over this wonderful cove and really just move rocks. That's the thing is shot for shot. It's as good as anything he's ever done. His eyes awesome. Yeah. And you know what Drew, I think it reads to a psychological thing about movie geeks, which is, you know, once you, once you've like, savored most or all of Carpenter's films, and you'll of course agree or mostly agree with a lot of the thoughts on Halloween and the thing, and you know, it's like, oh, the Halloween and Halloween and the thing are like his Titans, his big juggernauts. And then once you're a fan fan like we are, you start digging a little bit deeper.

And the ones that are slightly less beloved, you start to build this love for, you know, he is giving the performance that convinced him to never again play an actual role in one of his movies. Oh, yeah. This is John Carpenter here on the. John Carpenter is the the hippest janitor of all time. The hippest church janitor of all time. Look at me, he looks like he should be a rote for the dooby brothers.

Yeah.

It's awesome and it's the church janitor of all time. Look at me, he looks like he should be a rote for the dooby brothers.

Yeah.

It's awesome.

And he's the church janitor in Monterey Bay.

That's just, uh, well, you know what, we, I did one thing. I, I, one thing in my notes that I wanted to do is my favorite thing here is, we're gonna run through real quick. John Halsman, 80s films that you would know John Halsman from.

Holy Moses, my bodyguard, and ghost story.

That's John Halsman.

Next up.

Next up. that you would know John Hausman from. Holy Moses, my bodyguard, and ghost story.

That's John Hausman. Next up, the wonderful Hal Holbrook. I don't know exactly why Hal Holbrook never doesn't seem to be considered one of those a-list older-jent character actors. actors. You know, he's always he's always been kind of like that also ran in these but how broke such a cool character actor. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what I honestly don't know either I know so little about the context of how how broke was received critically while he was working originally. I think his performance is really well. I think he's a really good character actor who was memorable almost every time he showed up. Yeah, 1980s films that you will recognize how whole book from include The Wonderful Creep Show, The Underrated, The Star Chamber, and let's say Wall Street. There we go. I like this. I like how simple a ghost story this is. There's an old thing, it's buried, there's a secret. As soon as the secret starts to lead into the town, they have to figure out what to do about it. It's a very classically shaped ghost story. And I think a lot of what Carpenter did at the beginning of his career was show that, no matter what type of horror story he was telling, he had control over how he set a mood in an atmosphere and was exceptional at the details of these stories. Yeah, I agree. I think there's something in the fog that to me feels like, like, like, Carpenter, you know, he's fresh off the success of Halloween. This was his movie. This was his follow-up to Halloween And it's always says a lot about what a filmmaker chooses to do after they've become really successful. And for John Carpenter, after Halloween, his next project wasn't something, you know, bigger than life and gigantic and outside the realm of his, the wheelhouse or his comfort zone. It was, hey, I want to make something that feels like a 1954 monster movie or a horror movie. And it feels very quaint and old fashioned in that way. And Drew, does it? It makes you almost kind of feel for the guy. When after he made the film, he was told, no, you need to gourd up. You need to gourd up. Well, that's the thing. I think one of the things that I don't think these guys get credit for and then I think eventually we will

Understand when we put the whole generation context is that guys like jodhati and john carboner and george lucas and steven spielberg and brine to pauma all these filmmakers martin scorsese in a huge way these filmmakers were the american equivalent of what french watch for four was which is people who absorbed movies and digested them like film critics do, and then their films are their criticism. They are their way of not only paying tribute to the genres and the things that they love, but also canonizing people. What Joe Dante did with Dick Miller, that's not an accident. He loved Dick Miller. Thought he was one of the greatest characters of all time.

And then gradually, over the course of his adult career, found a way to make sure Dick Miller became the institution that Joe Dante believed he was. And Joe did that single-handedly. That is one of the things that Joe Dante's career accomplished. It gave Dick Miller a second career. And I think that is the thing that these guys, casting in these movies. It's not accidental. Janet Lee and Jamie Lee Curtis being in this

movie. Yeah. In the case of anybody out there was unaware. course Jamie Lee Curtis is of course the daughter of the psycho superstar Janet Lee. So the connection there if you never made that connection then there you go. That's their mother and daughter. So there is a lot of old school horror DNA in this movie in a lot of the casting in a lot of the look. And I remember very clearly as a kid being really impacted by this whole setup of all these just strange things happening throughout the town. You know, this stuff could have been shot at the very last minute as long, long intro to a short movie. But you know, it feels almost like a separate entity, this whole opening segment, but I just love it because it sets an ominous tone without... I like how similar some of this stuff is to the Spielberg early half of Close Encounters. Close Encounters really plays like a horror film when you're a kid. And to me, I think of the fog. I think it's the same thing. It's stuff outside. It's light. It's smoke trying to get in.

It's like, I don't think Spielberg was giving credit for how scary his shit was or how close it was to what Carpenter and these guys were doing. Right. And there's just a little, it's just subtlety that all the mildly creepy things are happening. And we're watching a horror movie. So as an audience, we're like, oh, this is the Harbin

duro scary things to come.

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