“One hundred years ago on the 21st of April, out in the waters around Spivey Point, a small clipper ship drew toward land…”
When John Carpenter watched his first cut of The Fog, he knew it needed work. Even though its planned release date was fast approaching, the studio, hoping they had the next Halloween on their hands, allowed him to go back and shoot new scenes that would up the movie’s scare factor.
Over the years, thanks to interviews and audio commentaries and such, Carpenter has made it clear what these scenes were: the opening with John Houseman, the morgue scene featuring Darwin Joston (reuniting the actor with Carpenter after starring in Assault on Precinct 13), and the lengthy attack on Adrienne Barbeau’s DJ Stevie Wayne at her lighthouse/radio station.
What’s never been as widely known is that scenes were lost or replaced. But thanks to Dennis Etchison’s novelization, released about a month before the film and omitting those latter two scenes (and a different version of the campfire one with Houseman), we can get a sense of how things may have played out originally.
For more, check out last year's milestone anniversary piece, The Fog at 45.
Obviously, with a Carpenter film, reading it on the page will never have the same effect. The widescreen visuals and his always memorable score are going to do a majority of the work in determining how much you enjoy the movie, so it’s hard to say whether or not his changes were for the better just by reading them on the page. But his original idea of making something more akin to a Val Lewton movie is certainly more evident in this take on the story.
Indeed, the novel is also missing another big scare scene: the part at the convenience store and other moments around town showing the fog’s effect on glass and electrical systems. The first hint of something odd happening is when the glass breaks on Nick’s (Tom Atkins) car after he picks up Elizabeth (Jamie Lee Curtis). And then the scene on the boat, where the three fishermen are murdered by Blake and his band of ghosts, only depicts the first (non-graphic) murder.
Carpenter originally wanted a PG rating (reminder: PG-13 didn’t exist yet), and he probably could have gotten it with this version, as even his reshoots didn’t exactly put it into R territory.
Side note: I had to laugh when people complained about the remake in 2005 being given a PG-13 rating – it was actually more graphic than the original! Terrible, awful movie, yes, but the PG-13 was in line with the original’s sensibilities.
The middle section of the book is where things differ the most from Carpenter’s finished film, to the extent that listing them all would perhaps make this one of the longest installments of this column to date. The most notable one is that Elizabeth and Nick actually split off for a while, with the former going into town to clear her head by drawing.
She ends up at a local tavern, where she meets and has a quick chat with Sandy and Mrs. Williams, the characters played by Nancy Loomis (Halloween) and Janet Leigh. In the final film, Jamie Lee barely interacts with her Halloween BFF and real-life mother (only a few vague, impersonal encounters in the film’s climax at the church), but here they get to actually have a full conversation, and then again in the climax.
The relationship between Nick and Elizabeth is a little more strained throughout the book, with Nick frequently rolling his eyes at her naivete and Elizabeth growing more frustrated by his questions about her past and feeling patronized by his calling her “kid” and other things of that nature.
Also, for die-hard fans who may be aware that there’s a fan theory that Elizabeth was indeed Laurie Strode, running from her past with a changed name, you will enjoy that Etchison—probably just making an innocent in-joke—has her refer to a lousy ex-boyfriend named Michael in one of her inner monologues. Her character definitely has more layers here than the film version offered.
We also get a little more info on Stevie and her son, Andy. It’s only somewhat hinted at in the final cut, but here we are informed that Stevie’s husband died a few years back, and taking over the radio station was one of the things that resulted from his passing. The scene where she drives to work and takes that long, gorgeous/ominous walk down the stairs to the lighthouse has her listening to a tape from her lawyer, where the man is presenting ideas for her to save money and keep from going under, as opposed to the movie where she’s just listening to new station ID jingles.
As for Andy, his character seems the most short-changed by these revisions. As in the movie, he’s just a typical kid needing rescue, but here he comes off as another lead, along with his mom, Nick, and Elizabeth. The longer opening scene depicts his journey from home to the beach, where the old man is telling his tales, and the part where he finds the coin/wood plank is greatly extended, with him finding dead starfish that have seemingly been killed on purpose (they’re stabbed with nails). This produces a follow-up scene in which he sneaks out again at night to get pictures of them, and an adjacent scene in which Stevie calls home to check on him. His elderly babysitter, embarrassed by her negligence, lies and says he’s sound asleep.
Later, there’s another change that was presumably just cut for budgetary reasons. When Nick and Elizabeth arrive at Dan O’Bannon’s weather station (O’Bannon’s death is also less clear here than in the finished film, for the record), Nick’s truck dies, and there’s a minor action scene where they scramble to hot-wire O’Bannon’s car as the fog approaches, and that’s the vehicle they use to rescue Andy and drive to the church. As Nick just has his truck throughout the rest of the movie, this couldn’t have been something that just got snipped out during the edit, as it would create a massive continuity error.
Something that WAS probably removed late in the edit, but retained here, is the reveal that the film’s six victims (including Father Malone, still alive until the closing frame) are all descendants of the original six conspirators who murdered Blake and his men one hundred years prior.
In the movie, Malone’s connection is the only one made clear, and audiences can just sort of assume that there’s a connection to the others, if they care at all. But by adding the extended scene of them going after Stevie at the lighthouse, this plot point would have to be removed, as it wouldn’t make sense for Blake to target her.
Finally, there’s an epilogue, set the following morning, where all the surviving characters decide to get breakfast together. We see their bonds have tightened thanks to the experience: Elizabeth plans to stick around longer, Sandy will stay with the now-widowed Mrs. Williams for a while, and so on.
Malone still gets beheaded, but it’s during the day, several hours later, as opposed to what seems like a few minutes after they seemingly ended the curse. Interestingly, Malone is burned along with Blake during the climax in the script that can be found online. That also has Stevie’s extended battle on top of the lighthouse that Carpenter has said was one of his late-game additions, so it’s strange that Etchison’s novel has one change but not the other.
Speaking of the author, he was clearly enjoying the gig and working in some little gags where he could. I already mentioned the “Michael” thing, but he also has the character of Dan O’Bannon consider how the fog on his radar resembles a “dark star” (I trust FANGORIA readers will get the reference without explaining). And while it’s a bit of a grim joke, I still smiled that Stevie liked to play Glenn Miller records, as Miller himself was lost in stormy weather during WWII and never found.
Etchison also seemed a bit shy to depict Nick and Elizabeth’s quick jump in the sack; while the online draft and of course the movie show them in bed together, clearly post-tryst, the book has them sitting at a table after Elizabeth patched up a cut Nick got from the exploding glass, allowing them a mere quick mere kiss before the scare scene at the door.
Again, I didn’t even mention all the differences, just the more notable ones. The basic beats of the story remain the same, but much like the novelization of The Thing, it’s clear the writer was working from an earlier draft while adding his own ideas, giving the novel a sort of “alternate universe” feel overall. In other words, an ideal selection for this column, because if it matched the movie exactly, there’d be nothing to write about.
First printings and those kept in excellent shape can run a bit high on eBay and Thriftbooks, but both also have “well-loved” copies for far more reasonable prices. Excellent news from Echo On Publications — they're reviving Dennis Etchison's original The Fog novel later this month.
All editions will include an introduction on Dennis Etchison by writer Christian Francis. The Fog reprint will be availbale in trade paperback, mass market paperback, jacketed hardcover, eBook (via website), and Audiobook April 30. Check out the Echo On official site for more on that.
If you’re a die-hard, I think it’s worth it; maybe it isn’t as enlightening as The Thing (or as whacked out as Halloween, if you’ve read it), but I almost never felt like he was just transcribing the movie, which is all I really ask from these things.
The Fog is currently streaming on Shudder, AMC+, and Prime Video. Shout Factory also released a sweet limited edition steelbook in 2022.
