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Mr_Jase_UK
Reviews
The Fog (1980)
Atmospheric, Creepy, and extremely underrated
I rememeber watching this film as a kid, it gave my sister nightmares for months and she has never watched it since. It's classic Carpenter, in my humble opinion, I prefer this film over the much overrated Halloween, don't get me wrong Halloween is a great movie, but Black Christmas came before and was much better and doesn't get any of the recognition it deserves. The Fog, creates in some scenes an intense atmosphere of dread and foreboding, which adds to the chills, accompanied by the wonderful creepy score, by none other than JC himself, as with Halloween. Its classic JC in the sense that he really delivers with direction and the creation of atmosphere which is SO important and that 99% of the attempted horror flicks of today just can't manage at all. Blake and his fellow ghostly slashers are great, with their glowing red eyes and dark statuesque. The assortment of weapons and the death scenes are very well done, you really don't need bucket loads of blood and gore to frighten and shock, the death scenes in The Fog, are violent and even verging on disturbing. Maybe its just me but I'm also very fond of some of the funny moments in the movie, Janet Leigh's line to Nancy Loomis (Halloween) 'Your the only person who makes Yes Ma'am sound like screw you' is a fantastic line and makes me smile every time. For me The Fog is an extremely underrated Horror classic, far too often overshadowed by Halloween and The Thing (which wouldn't be half as good without Make-Up genius Rob Bottin, now would it?) Even the end of the film doesn't disappoint, its unexpected and ends the film perfectly. Jamie Lee doesn't do anything for the movie at all, but as usual Tom Atkins is great. So a slasher/ghost flick with a plot, stranger things have happened I guess. Of course the film isn't perfect but as far as chills and scares go, you can't go wrong with The Fog.
Black Christmas (1974)
Heavily Underrated and Overlooked Classic Slasher
To those of you Halloween fans, THIS is the film that came first, John Carpenter's Halloween is doused with aspects lifted directly from Bob Clark's Black Christmas. Alongside Psycho it remains one of my personal classics. Very unnearving and in parts horrific - the phone calls for instance. Basically its Christmas time, as the title suggests and an unknown killer has found his way into the attic of a sorority girls house and begins killing them one by one. Kidder's performance of the drunken, outspoken Barb is fantastic, followed closely by Olivia Hussey, who is truly beautiful in this movie. The camera work and direction is first rate, the first person perspective, heavy breathing - which most will know from Halloween, Mr Clark did it here first, and in my opinion, did it better than JC. It's not full of gore its full of suspense and wonderful creepy atmosphere, as I mentioned before, the phone calls really will put you on edge, as will the 'eye' scene. Get ready for a shocking ending and watch it again for all the bits that you didn't catch, believe me there will be some. Alongside Jacob's Ladder, Don't Look Now and The Fog this really is one of the most frightening films I have ever had the pleasure to acquire.