John Carpenter’s ‘The Fog’ is a fascinating film, using history and legend to explore a community haunted – literally – by its own past. Set in the coastal town of Antonio Bay, California, the story begins on the eve of the town’s centenary. But beneath the celebrations lies a dark secret: the settlement was built on an act of betrayal, and now, the victims are returning from the sea, shrouded in mist, to exact revenge on the descendants of those who wronged them.

It’s an irresistibly mythic premise – the idea that a quiet, ordinary town can suddenly find itself overtaken by supernatural reckoning in the space of one night. The opening scene, with an old sailor telling ghost stories to children by a campfire, sets the perfect tone, and from there Carpenter builds a thick, eerie atmosphere. Adrienne Barbeau plays the local radio DJ, broadcasting from her lighthouse in a ‘Play Misty for Me’–style setup, serving as both narrator and reluctant witness as the fog rolls in and the dead emerge.

If there’s a weakness, it’s that the film spreads itself thin across too many characters, giving it a slightly rambling feel and no clear emotional centre. Yet what it lacks in characterization, it more than makes up for in mood. Lights flicker, objects rattle, and the town itself seems to awaken in terror, with echoes of ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ in its strange electrical phenomena, and ‘Jaws’ in its seaside community on the brink of disaster.

At its heart, ‘The Fog’ is about guilt and retribution. There’s something almost Augustinian about its moral universe: the sins of the fathers have cursed the children, and everyone in Antonio Bay carries that inherited guilt. Carpenter never spells it out too neatly – the spectral sailors remain shadowy, less explicit than Michael Myers in ‘Halloween’ – but that ambiguity only adds to the unease.

A chilling, poetic ghost story, ‘The Fog’ lingers like its title mist – enveloping, mysterious, and impossible to shake off.