1980: "The Fog"
The Fog is an technical masterpiece that is sadly overlooked. Though decidedly a minor film in Carperter's oeuvre, it is a perfectly crafted exercise in atmosphere and pacing (and a thinly veiled allegory for idealizing history), not to mention a film that further cements Carpenter's reputation as one of horror cinema's greatest practitioners.
It is minor in the sense that, story-wise, it is not overly ambitious. It is a very old-fashioned ghost story (the opening scene of John Houseman telling children a campfire story establishes the movie's tone right off the bat). Even Adrienne Barbeau (who plays the radio DJ) acts as a sort of medieval sentry, watching the town and warning its citizens in her lighthouse radio station (which, by the way, is one of the best locations for a radio station I've even seen). But this is a movie that is purely driven by mood and an eerie patience, and it's one of the best of its kind in that regard (it's about as cinematic a horror film as you can imagine).
The shot compositions are so beautifully crafted and so detailed that I'd almost recommend them to aspiring film majors. The shots of the ocean are so breath-takingly massive and desolate that they become a character in of itself and make the small-town folk helplessly small in the face of this impending danger. And the fog itself is executed with such serpentine creepiness that it's a wonder how it was done so seamlessly (and on a small budget, too). It is not an overt jump scare fest, but a movie that creepily envelops the viewer like a cloud.
Though if I were to say its flaws, the characters are not the most riveting. They are, more or less, there to drive the story along, but they are acceptable and mundane enough to make the threat all the more overpowering.
It is a small gem in Carpenter's career and worth a look if you're a Carpenter completist, or a fan of atmospheric horror.
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