The Fog

So the weekend was pretty good. Went to Clapham for Liam's 30th on Saturday, where he'd hired out a place called Gigalum (previously Oblivion) by the green. Whilst in the area, I nipped next door with Siobhahn and Kerryn to Pizza on the Green, which is kind of like the DFS of pizza, in that over the five or six years I've been going there, it's constantly had a 50% off 'special deal' on. Works for me anyhow. The bar was actually pretty bad though.

Last night I watched John Carpenter's The Fog, which I stayed up quite late to catch. There are some programmes or films you seem fated to only ever see certain episodes of. For instance: If I should happen to turn on 'Only Fools and Horses' of an evening, there's a 90% chance it'll be the episode where Del and Rodney dress up as Batman and Robin and go to the wake, or if I happen to flick channels to be confronted with the original 70s version of Battlestar Galactica, it'll always be the episode where they go down to the gambling planet, where there's an alien version of The Three Degrees (with double the usual amount of features) performing in the casino, and the bug-like proprietors who run the show are conniving with the Cylons. Always.

Similarly, up to now I'd witnessed The Fog on around three separate ocassions, but only ever seen the last ten minutes or so, which really, is probably the worst bit of a horror film to catch in isolation isn't it? Unless it's the film version of I Am Legend, when you're just actually saving around an hour and a half of your life which would be better served cleaning the oven, or something equally less pointless.

It was alright actually, though pretty understated all in all. Things I admired were: the lovely seventies titles, the Tangerine Dream-esque throbbing synthesized score, the glowing fog (which, coupled with the aforementioned music gave some scenes the feel of a nightclub frequented by dead sailors) and the alcoholic priest. It's not as good as The Thing, but then what is? Apparently there are intertextual Lovecraftian references to Arkham in there (which I missed) and one of the characters is called Dan O'Bannon, and I wondered if that was a nod to the actor/screenwriter of Alien/Dark Star fame.. I certainly hope so.

Anyway. Sorry to get all IMDB on your asses, but I might go and see a new film this week, in which case I might tell you about that. Or not.