++1/2
Jamie Lee Curtis sticks out a thumb and leaves virginal Laurie Strode (Halloween) behind, casually sleeping with the middle-aged man who picks her up just outside the coastal California town of Antonio Bay. Here, as Elizabeth Solley, she finds herself in the middle of a ghostly mess involving the passengers of a ship that was lured onto nearby rocks a hundred years ago; the ship sank, the passengers drowned, and now they're pissed off and looking for revenge. Adrienne Barbeau plays a DJ, high up in her lighthouse radio station, with a bird's eye view of the strange glowing fog that conceals the wronged killers. Hal Holbrook is a priest who uncovers their hidden agenda. None of which is particularly interesting or scary or, believe it or not, in any way atmospheric. Carpenter's direction is strictly by the script, all plot and no poetry. With a stronger story, this might have worked, but this one is little more than a daisy chain linking one cliche to another. With an ending that manages to be not only trite but completely illogical. Remade, for some reason, in 2005.
Jamie Lee Curtis sticks out a thumb and leaves virginal Laurie Strode (Halloween) behind, casually sleeping with the middle-aged man who picks her up just outside the coastal California town of Antonio Bay. Here, as Elizabeth Solley, she finds herself in the middle of a ghostly mess involving the passengers of a ship that was lured onto nearby rocks a hundred years ago; the ship sank, the passengers drowned, and now they're pissed off and looking for revenge. Adrienne Barbeau plays a DJ, high up in her lighthouse radio station, with a bird's eye view of the strange glowing fog that conceals the wronged killers. Hal Holbrook is a priest who uncovers their hidden agenda. None of which is particularly interesting or scary or, believe it or not, in any way atmospheric. Carpenter's direction is strictly by the script, all plot and no poetry. With a stronger story, this might have worked, but this one is little more than a daisy chain linking one cliche to another. With an ending that manages to be not only trite but completely illogical. Remade, for some reason, in 2005.
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