1980 ghost story The Fog might not be remembered as the finest hour of horror master John Carpenter, but it still has its fans, including its star Adrienne Barbeau, who’s expressed interest in appearing in a belated sequel.
The story sees the centenary of a Californian coastal town become marred by the revelation that its founders intentionally sank a ship approaching its shores to prevent a leper colony from being established nearby, and then used gold plundered from the wreck to fund their settlement’s construction. In the present, an eldritch bank of fog rolls in from the Pacific, from which emerge the glowing-eyed revenants of the drowned, with six descendants of the town’s founders marked for death in retribution for that same number of sailors killed in fear and greed a hundred years previously.
Barbeau’s Stevie Wayne is one of the central characters, her husky, sultry voice perfect in the role of a radio DJ, and when interviewed by The Thing With Two Heads about her horror career, she had this to say of a potential return:
“I’d love to play Stevie Wayne again, many years later.”
The Fog being forgotten about is not specifically due to it being a bad film – on the contrary, it’s fantastic – but when a directorial grouping includes the likes of Halloween, The Thing, Assault On Precinct 13 and Escape From New York, it tends to get overlooked.
Not too long ago, it might have seemed a tall order to talk about a possible sequel to a movie 40 years old, but with so much of the zeitgeist in one way or another catering to Gen-X nostalgia, the litany of past efforts being afforded new installments is larger than ever, so its time may yet come. Of course, it’s already been revisited in a forgettable 2005 version that saw Selma Blair in Barbeau’s role, and as one of a slew of mediocre remakes of ‘70s and ‘80s horrors that emerged throughout the 2000s, the less said about it the better.
From its chilling opening of an old seaman frightening children with the eerie backstory to the abruptly terminated coda tying up a loose end, The Fog is a severely underrated horror movie that deserves more love, and a sequel bringing back Barbeau might finally result in the attention it should have.
