We all come from childhood. And John Carpenter is no exception, because many of his films have a close connection with the classic black and white film fiction, which he loved to watch as a child, being impressed with the images from there. This British film from that time, which influenced the future honored director. While filming his masterful Fog, Carpenter made no secret of the fact that inspiration was drawn from distant childhood memories when he mesmerized on the screen an ominous cloud hovering in the Swiss mountains, frightening the small village of Trollenberg. It emitted radiation, because it was very relevant for the plots of fantastic films of the late fifties during the Cold War, and certainly gave a charming theme to other worlds that so beckoned the growing power of science, ready to look into the cosmic expanses. The film is interesting for its script, able to withstand intrigue, possessing a bouquet of curious plot twists, being science fiction, fascinating mystery and instilling genuine fear.
It all begins with two sisters, randomly decided to get off the train in the resort of Trollenberg, where climbers come to rest, because the younger has telepathy and some force beckons her here. She feels something bad in the air, drowning out the thoughts of ordinary people, being much larger and more powerful. High in the mountains is an observatory conducting research on a strange radioactive fog that can move as if it were alive. As the plot develops, the viewer is waiting for a whole heap of fascinating moments associated with a leisurely act out of the situation when a small snow-covered settlement is in horror, not understanding the nature of the sinister events taking place: the girl predicts trouble, irrationally feeling the aura of unhappiness; the guest has already faced something similar, because he works at the UN for the study of mysterious things; vacationers in the mountains are found decapitated; scientists in the laboratory report a new activity of fog sliding down, whose thick atmosphere can hide the most unexpected. And that’s not all, because this “unexpected” has an incomprehensible will to control even dead people from a distance, making them tools to achieve their secret plans, turning them into puppet spies in an instant becoming bloodthirsty killers, out of the chain. In the American box office, the film was released under the second title “Creeping Eye”, which, along with the poster and trailer, still reveal the intrigue of the fog, but the course of affairs is not in a hurry to reduce to a typical horror story about a huge extraterrestrial monster, which were then in fashion. On the contrary, the story is quite leisurely, relishing the multifaceted horror that descended on a village and a hotel at the foot of the mountains, where climbers frozen to death can wander, driven by the power of a frightening mist, gradually settling down on the settlement. The symbiosis of mystery and horror works perfectly, allowing you to think together with the characters of the picture about cosmic threats and aliens from there exploring our planet, whose appearance is ugly and methods are far from humane. Fleur of horror envelops science fiction, making you feel fear of the vast black and black expanse around our fragile globe, which is not sheltered from outside encroachments. The giant cold landscapes and the small settlement in the Alps, cut off from the big world, increase this feeling of insecurity in comparison with the boundless space and possible guests who descended from other planets.
Having significant prerequisites, alas, the film did not turn out to be outstanding, because its director Quentin Lawrence before and after worked in serial production, besides the production itself is made in the spirit of a television project, traditionally released every Saturday on the British channel in the form of another horror story. Possessing some memorable frightening scenes that are not outdated to this day, the work is not so full of aged suspense to further thicken the sinister fog, instantly lowering the temperature, controlling the dead, radiating, possessing intelligence and melting monsters. However, for fans of genre paintings of those years, which became classic science fiction of the fifties, it will be nice to drive for an hour and a half to the snowy Trollenberg, whose eerie mist once inspired a little boy, so that years later, becoming a talented director, he filmed his famous horror, emerging from a dense fog and born in it.
6 out of 10