The Progressive Cinema Scorecard:
The Fog
- For thinking a movie based on scary fog would be a good idea. = -15pts.
- For being directed by John Carpenter. (Back when "directed by John Carpenter" actually meant something other than eliciting a feeling of bemused nostalgic disapointment) = +40 pts
- For casting Alfred Hitchcock and dressing him like the sailor guy from The Simpsons. = +20pts
- Wait, that's not Alfred Hitchcock that's (a drunk) John Houseman (talking to what looks like a couple of Native American kids. What the Fuck is going on)! = -21pts
- For reminding me who John Houseman was and how many movies he was in that I forgot about. = +6pts
- Wait, those are white kids from the 70's, not Native Americans? Where are their parents? = A wash.
- A drunk priest! Played by Hal Holbrook! Before he married a Designing Woman! = +5pts
- Ringing pay phones as a device of terror. = -3pts
- Holy shit! Lights turned on! = -5pts
- I thought the title of this movie was The Fog, not Maximum Overdrive. = -5pts
- De-li-laaaaaah. = +3pts
- Casting the dude who played that dad of that chick who killed herself at the beginning of the first Leathal Weapon. = +5pts
- Jaime Lee Curtis! (Weird, she looks both really young and really old for her age.) = +15pts
- Operating a radio show in a lighthouse? Best job ever! = +3pts
- A fucking Pirate Ship? = -5pts
- Man, those pirates sure are meaner than the ones from the Caribbean. = +7pts
- Ah, the 70's... Back when you could pick up a strange chick on the side of the road around midnight, have some crazy nothing blow out your window, and be back at his place boning within the hour. We miss you 70's! Call us! = +10pts
- Shame on you John Carpenter. I know you like to score your own movies, but recylcing the Halloween music only in a different key and played backwards? That's weak sauce, even for you. = -15pts
- The set for the Antonio Bay celebration. = -8pts (2 year-old B-day parties have better set-ups.)
- Janet Leigh! Film geeks from the 70's must have shot their wads. = +5pts
- Do women even use curling irons any more? = +2pts
- Hal Holbrook reading a book...badly. Terryfying! = -10pts
- Polite ghost leper pirates?! Why not! = +10pts
- If another character stops the movie to tell a personal anecdote, I'm going to flip my shit. = -10pts
- That leaking plank of wood scene and the creepy voice. First legitamatly scary thing all movie. = +10pts
- (Potential scoring oppourtunity. If Andy dies? Limitless. If he lives? Missed oppuortunity.)
- Presumably dead body(s) moving underneath a white sheets.= +8pts
- Horror movie writing 101. Having a character begin any explanation with the phrase, "This is going to sound a little strange..." (Horror set-up: Check. Exposition: Check)= +3pts
- Killing Andy's babtsitter, thus eliminating one person closer to Andy. = +5pts.
- Andy lives. = -10pts
- Delilah whining about Andy over the radio for what seems like HOURS. = -5pts
- Calling yourself a horror movie when nobody of real import dies. = -30pts
+15pts. Pretty close to a goose egg here. Not one of John Carpenter's finest movies. Kind of boring and a bit ridiculous (and not in a good way). In fact, had this film not "allegedly" been directed by John Carpenter it may have been Paranormal Activity bad. Instead, it was only Monkey Shines bad. Still, the scorecard makes all things bearable.
