The Fog

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Police Are Useless: Downplayed and soon subverted. While Detective Inspector Barrow is aggressively suspicious of Holman, Chief Superintendent Wreford more patiently considers Holman's outlandish report, and against the anticipated mass-insanity, takes precautionary measures. When the Fog starts to infect people in their thousands, the Commissioner for Police refers Holman, with his firsthand knowledge of the Fog, to Whitehall. Donnelly, K. J. (2009). "Hearing Deep Seated Fears: John Carpenter's The Fog (1980)". In Lerner, Neil (ed.). Music in the Horror Film: Listening to Fear. New York City, New York: Routledge. pp.152–167. ISBN 978-1-135-28044-4. In terms of sexual orientation, Summers, a deputy headmaster, is presented as both homosexual and a paedophile in terms of his attractions (if not necessarily his actions) in a way that suggests that all homosexuals are also paedophiles. This issue, of paedophilia being presented as an aspect of homosexuality, was raised as a matter of concern by Anton in the Horror Aficionados May 2013 group read topic. Today, most people would probably not assume that homosexuals were automatically also paedophiles and so Anton's concerns about this discredited cliché are reasonable. However, it's necessary to remember that the book was written in the early '70s and that until 1967 - just eight years before the book's publication - homosexuality had been illegal in Britain. In addition to this, despite the age of majority being lowered from 21 to 18 in 1969, and the age of consent for heterosexuals being 16 since 1885, it was not (amazingly) until 1994 that 18 to 20-year-old males could have homosexual sex! (I thank David for pointing out below that it was 16 to 17-year-olds who were permitted to have gay sex from 2001.) So when summers is described as having been attracted to 'boys' who had been called up to serve in the British army during the 1940s, the term would've been correct at the time in that the 18 to 20-year-old recruits were legally children. Thus, Summers' attraction to them would've been seen as paedophiliac not only at the time but also for nearly twenty years after The Fog was first published, since it would have remained the case that anyone aged 21 or older engaging in gay sex with someone under 21 would be regarded as a criminal - and also in many people's minds, a paedophile. (I have benefited here from using the British section of Wikipedia's article on the ages of consent in Europe.)

Earthquakes Cause Fissures: Played for Horror - a quiet village high street, followed by a baffling tremor, is split apart by a fissure of unclear depth, into which fall two young children. From the depths escapes a strangely driven yellow cloud... Finally (to let out my OCD side a bit), typos and other errors were scarce, unlike in so many works published today. Nevertheless, you do get oddities like: 'uneaven pace' (p. 159), 'load and clear' (for ' loud and clear' [p. 207]), the admittedly common enough 'comprised of' (p. 266) and '...he pulled farther [sic] towards him until their bodies touched' (p. 190) - surely, he meant 'closer'? Williamson, J.N., ed. (1987). Masques II: All-New Stories of Horror and the Supernatural. Baltimore: Maclay & Assoc. ISBN 978-0-940776-24-1. Leogrande, Ernest (March 1, 1980). " 'Fog': A case of the damps". New York Daily News. p.166 – via Newspapers.com.So some people today might find some of Herbert's attitudes, or at least those of his main character, to be objectionable if read from a modern perspective. However, if the book is read as a product of its time, then one could ignore these chauvinistic attitudes and just follow the narrative, not unlike setting aside the racism and snobbery in a work by H. P. Lovecraft, for example, just to enjoy the horror. And it sort of is for the first 30 minutes ... all the little set-piece stories you remember ... madness spreading through a town ...and school What's not fun is the characters, who are paper thin, boring and so forgettable there out of my memory banks as I'm writing this review. There's some sub plots, particularly the romance element, that is like watching paint dry and that's down to the characters. Corny dialogue and zero development. More horrifying than the actual fog that's terrorising them. With his third novel, the ghost story The Survivor, Herbert used supernatural horror rather than the science fiction horror of his first two books. In Shrine, he explored his Roman Catholic heritage with the story of an apparent miracle which turns out to be something much more sinister. Haunted, the story of a sceptical paranormal investigator taunted by malicious ghosts, began life as a screenplay [13] for the BBC, though this was not the screenplay used in the eventual film version. Its sequels were The Ghosts of Sleath and Ash. [14] Others of Herbert's books, such as Moon, Sepulchre and Portent, are structured as thrillers and include espionage and detective story elements along with the supernatural. The Fog is not a great book, and James Herbert is not a great writer. This isn’t without its charms though, and I’m planning to read Herbert’s Rats trilogy and The Spear in the future.

Etchison, Dennis, ed. (1991a). Masters of Darkness III. New York City: Tor Books. ISBN 978-0-8125-1766-8. It has sex in it ... really badly written sex. I can see why I liked it as a teenager but these sections now feel creepily old-fashioned. I love that "moist cave" isn't enough, he has to specify that there are multiple caves and this is the moistest. Scanlon, Paul (June 28, 1979). " 'The Fog': A Spook Ride on Film". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on February 28, 2015 – via TheOfficialJohnCarpenter.com.In the years following its release, The Fog has amassed a cult following, [30] and later came to be considered, as Carpenter opined regarding his creation, "a minor horror classic" though he also stated it was not his favorite film due to re-shoots and low production values. [20] This is one of the reasons he agreed to the 2005 remake. [31] Boulenger, Gilles (2003). John Carpenter: Prince of Darkness. Los Angeles, California: Silman-James Press. ISBN 978-1-879-50567-4.