Longtime readers of Really Scary know of our…um, fascination with Adrienne Barbeau. When Net Digest says this about you, “You don't need to have an unhealthy Adrienne Barbeau obsession to enjoy Really Scary...but it helps,” it may indicate some issues. But we’ve convinced our lawyers that professional care shouldn’t become necessary. During this self-analysis though we realized that it’s the 25^th anniversary of where this um, fascination was born. It was 1980…

Stevie Wayne. She of the dropdead radio voice that kept us all cozy on those long foggy nights in Antonio Bay. C’mon, you remember: “It’s 12 midnight and we just started into the witching hour. This is Stevie Wayne on top of the world tonight and I’ll be here right up until about 1 o’clock.” That’s right, we fell for the DJ in John Carpenter’s 1980 classic The Fog. And we’re not ashamed.

The film starts off with the legendary John Houseman as Machen, sitting at a campfire, he begins to tell a tale to the group gathered round:

“11:55, almost midnight. Enough time for one more story. One more story before 12:00, just to keep us warm. In five minutes, it will be the 21st of April. One hundred years ago on the 21st of April, out in the waters around Spivey Point, a small clipper ship drew toward land. Suddenly, out of the night, the fog rolled in. For a moment, they could see nothing, not a foot in front of them. Then, they saw a light. By God, it was a fire burning on the shore, strong enough to penetrate the swirling mist. They steered a course toward the light. But it was a campfire, like this one. The ship crashed against the rocks, the hull sheared in two, mars snapped like a twig. The wreckage sank, with all the men aboard. At the bottom of the sea, lay the Elizabeth Dane, with her crew, their lungs filled with salt water, their eyes open, staring to the darkness. And above, as suddenly as it come, the fog lifted, receded back across the ocean and never came again. But it is told by the fishermen, and their fathers and grandfathers, that when the fog returns to Antonio Bay, the men at the bottom of the sea, out in the water by Spivey Point will rise up and search for the campfire that led them to their dark, icy death.”

Carpenter said in an interview with Giles Boulenger that Houseman’s tale is meant to activate the story. “This scene was meant to tell the audience that it was an old-fashioned tale. Machen is telling you a story, and I’m telling you a story.”

Carpenter strongly believed that to be big, you had to film big and The Fog was shot in anamorphic widescreen Panavision, just as Assault of Precinct 13 had been.

Carpenter longtime friend and collaborator Tommy Lee Wallace has said that Carpenter insisted they go with Panavision equipment of Precinct. And that in fact they shot anamorphic widescreen 2:35:1. He also insisted on the best processing money could buy, which was the legendary MGM color labs and that finally they get the best postproduction sound, which was Samuel Goldwyn Sounds, another legend. The expense for this unorthodox approach ate up a huge amount of the budget and the production manager fumed that they were exploiting people to pay for processing – and Wallace said that was true. But when Wallace saw the dailies he knew that Carpenter had taught him the most valuable lesson he’d ever learn in moviemaking -- the movie will be here long after we’re gone. Do whatever it takes to make it look and sound its best. Whatever it takes.

The grander feel Carpenter was able to give his movies by not compromising when it came to equipment is a large part of why these films have the enduring quality they do. Panavision sucks you completely in. You’re in Antonio Bay and Stevie Wayne could be your girlfriend.

Shot for a reported $1 million, The Fog was part of a two-picture deal signed by Carpenter with a young production company called AVCO-Embassy. Co-scripted by Debra Hill, The Fog also united Jamie Lee Curtis and her mother, Janet Leigh, for the first time in a feature film. But it wasn’t an easy one to make for Carpenter.

Halloween had reportedly been magical to make. A cast and crew for the ages that knew exactly how to get what they wanted. Lightning in a bottle. If you believe in karmic whiplash, then The Fog was that for Carpenter. He had completed the entire movie and realized it didn’t work. Not just that he needed to do more editing and a couple of reshoots, he realized it didn’t work at all. In the same interview with  Boulenger, Carpenter said, “We cut out perhaps 25 to 30 percent of the original film. A new character was added. The entire flow and tempo of the movie was changed…It was very shocking to go from a movie that was as easy to make as Halloween to a movie that seemed to be simple on the surface when you read it and that was in the end a much more difficult film to pull off. It was quite a humbling experience.”

John Carpenter didn’t hit the home run with The Fog as he had previously with Halloween had but it has endured over the years and now holds a special place in many a horror fan’s heart. Special enough that 25 years later, Sony Pictures has a remake of The Fog about to hit theaters, a special edition DVD that has become a bestseller and everyone knows to stay out of the fog.

In the words of the incomparable Stevie Wayne, “I don't know what happened to Antonio Bay tonight. Something came out of the fog and tried to destroy us. In one moment, it vanished. But if this has been anything but a nightmare, and if we don't wake up to find ourselves safe in our beds, it could come again. To the ships at sea who can hear my voice, look across the water, into the darkness. Look for the fog.”