Today celebrates John Carpenter’s ‘The Fog’ day, so Matt Konopka puts together a list of foggy horror films to watch with the classic haunter
Happy John Carpenter’s The Fog day!
It’s on this day, April 21st, that the deadly fog of ghosts descended on Antonio Bay for their revenge. To celebrate, I’ve compiled a list of some of the foggiest horror films you can watch alongside Carpenter’s classic for a dreamy day of white mist and Gothic terror.
Some may call it cheesy, but for me, there’s nothing like good fog in a horror movie. I’m the type who wants my nights misty and the ground covered in a sheet of rolling clouds. It’s the surrealism of fog that makes it such an excellent accomplice to any genre film. The thicker it is, the more it feels like we’ve stepped into a nightmare world of terror, where anything can leap out at us in a sudden burst of smoky white tendrils. When a filmmaker incorporates the eerie mist, I want it to look like half the budget was spent on machines working overtime to pump it out. Spare no expense, and all that jazz.
Of course, the list of horror films that feature fog is long and wide. You’d be hard-pressed to find a Gothic genre movie that doesn’t contain at least one smoky nighttime scene. So, for the films you’ll find below, I sought out movies with so much fog that it practically becomes a character. In some cases, like The Fog, it is.
Get lost in the cloudy haze of the movies below.
Horror Hotel/The City of the Dead (1960)
Courtesy of British Lion Holdings Ltd.
Also known as The City of the Dead, I’m pretty sure John Llewellyn Moxey’s Horror Hotel caused a fog machine shortage in 1960. Not really, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the case.
This Gothic horror film follows a college student who heads to a sleepy Massachusetts town to study witchcraft. Once there, though, she discovers the inhabitants are not what they appear to be.
We all have different definitions of “cozy” horror, but for me, Horror Hotel is one of the coziest genre films I have ever seen. There is so much fog in this movie, it’s like a visual pillow that you just want to lay your head down on and relax with. Couple that with decrepit houses, eerie cemeteries, and enough cobwebs to decorate an entire theme park for Halloween, and you have a dreamy Gothic horror movie perfect for a Sunday afternoon watch.
Streaming on Shudder and Tubi.
Silent Hill (2006)
Courtesy of Sony Pictures
If there’s one horror franchise known for fog, it’s Konami’s Silent Hill games. And that’s one element that Christophe Gans‘ 2006 film adaptation manages to get right.
Rose’s (Radha Mitchell) adopted daughter has recurring nightmares about a town named Silent Hill that has led to her sleepwalking. In an attempt to cure her, the desperate mother takes the girl to the town of her nightmares…where they find plenty of real-life terrors roaming the fog-drenched ghost town.
Gans coats every inch of the title setting in a thick mist that makes it impossible for characters to see five feet in front of them. That makes for plenty of creepy moments that see strange fiends slowly emerging into view. Here, the fog also acts as a sort of character. The Silent Hill stories contain as much psychological terror as they do monsters, trapping characters in a sort of memory fog that they must work through on their way to discovering some terrible secret. I wouldn’t say the film nails it, but Gans does go heavy on the atmosphere while including a few gnarly moments that I doubt you’ll forget anytime soon.
The Haunted Palace (1963)
Courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios
Roger Corman often gets associated with the long list of B-horror films he produced, but some audiences forget that the man was also an extraordinary filmmaker. Look no further than the string of movies he directed in collaboration with Vincent Price, most based on the tales of Edgar Allan Poe. The Haunted Palace, however, borrows from both Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, and it’s exactly the creepy, choked with fog outing that you’d expect.
Price stars as Charles Dexter Ward, who inherits an old castle from his great, great uncle, Joseph Curwen (also played by Price). He and his wife arrive in the misty town to check the place out, only to discover that the townspeople—many of them disfigured—have a certain hate for the Curwen family. Turns out, Joseph Curwen was a warlock burned at the stake by the villagers…and his spirit has set its sights on possessing Charles in order to live once again.
Corman goes all out with the fog machines here. Every single outdoor shot has thick clouds of the stuff rolling around through the air, as if the village rests at the bottom of a dragon’s lair. I suppose, in some ways, it does. Throw in an always excellent Price, the legendary Lon Chaney Jr. playing Curwen’s ghoulish, undead accomplice, and the cobweb-infested setting, and this one is a treat for Gothic horror fans of all stripes.
Streaming on Tubi and Kanopy.
The Mist (2007)
Courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios
Frank Darabont’sThe Mist is, without a doubt, one of the best creature features of the last two decades. And it offers a plot that’s vaguely in line with The Fog.
Based on Stephen King’s story of the same name, the film revolves around a Maine community overtaken by a strange fog… one that harbors otherworldly monsters. A group of survivors manages to find safety inside a grocery store. But before long, a religious fanaticism rises within their midst, revealing that sometimes, people are the worst monsters of all.
A tribute to the giant monster films of the ’50s with all of the gore of the ’80s, The Mist throws one horror after another at the audience, all of them emerging from a thick fog that coats the screen. Burn those overgrown spiders with fire! Most terrifying of all, though, is Marcia Gay Harden’s Mrs. Carmody, a fanatic who will seem all too familiar to a modern audience. Come for the monsters, and stay for one of the most controversial endings of any King adaptation.
Watch the black and white version to really make that fog pop.
The Others (2001)
Courtesy of Paramount Pictures
Following the success of The Sixth Sense, it seemed like every horror film shot for a surprise ending in the early aughts. And oh my, does The Others deliver a doozy.
Nicole Kidman stars in Alejandro Amenábar’s supernatural tale set in 1945 as a mother watching over her two children at the family estate while waiting for her husband to return from war. Soon, the little tykes begin acting strangely, and Momma becomes convinced that the house is haunted.
Most good ghost stories contain a fair bit of fog (gotta have that Gothic atmosphere), but The Others takes the proverbial cake. Similar to Silent Hill, a thick mist surrounds the setting that the characters just can’t seem to break through. That makes for prime supernatural horror, all of it leading to a finale that left the audience’s jaws hanging in 2001. Plus, Nicole Kidman makes movies better.
Streaming on Shudder.
The Wolf Man (1941)
Courtesy of Universal Pictures
Listen, any chance I get to include my beloved Wolf Man on a list, I’m going to take it. Besides, there’s a case to be made for The Wolf Man as one of Universal’s foggiest classic horror films.
Writer Curt Siodmak more or less established basic werewolf lore as we know it in this tale about a man named Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr., appearing on this list again) who returns to his father’s estate. There, he finds himself falling in love with a beautiful woman. But once he is attacked by a wolf after attending a carnival, Larry is cursed to become a werewolf under the light of the full moon…turning him into a dangerous monster that threatens to destroy everything he cares for.
Fog looks great in almost any horror film, but it especially looks magnificent here. Cinematographer Joseph A. Valentine captures one haunting image after another as the wolf man stalks through a Gothic twisting of trees, a forest that seems otherworldly at times. The silhouette of Talbot’s werewolf lurking through the fog, only to suddenly emerge with a fearsome growl… it’s simply stunning. And frightening. And you’ll never forget it, in part thanks to the clouds of mist that give the film that cozy, Gothic vibe that many on this list relish in.
What are some of your favorite foggy horror films? Let us know in the comments below!
