The Fog (*)

Ugh. Another week, another pointless remake. I just watched John Carpenter's original a week ago, and I really liked it. It's no Halloween, but it's effectively creepy and makes for a genuinely horrific ghost story with some well-earned scares. The remake is modeled after all the Japanese horror films that have made their way overseas. Like The Ring and The Grudge, it feels the need to explain away the ghosts and focus on the backstory. What those movies and this one don't understand though is if we know all there is to know about the ghosts, they're not that scary. Maggie Grace of t.v.'s Lost takes over the Jaime Lee Curtis role, and she's awful. She can't emote at all, and spends most of the film in a robotic trance. The movie is also plagued by a really annoying pop soundtrack, and is utterly devoid of any scares. The film tries to stand apart from the original, and in doing so, fails completely on every level.