The Fog

October has been designated as scary movie month in the Heinisch home for as long as I can remember.  We started our children off with kid friendly ones early in their lives including one of my Disney favorites, Something Wicked This Way Comes.  I still remember seeing it in the theater back in the 1980s and was glad to share my love of jump scares with them.  From there they graduated to Doug's favorite, Halloween.  Brett even went through a Michael Myers stage wearing his beloved mask and jumpsuit everywhere.  

Since those early days, other horror movies have been added into our October watching lineup.  We've watched old ones like Friday the 13th, innovative ones such as The Blair Witch Project and new ones  including Get Out.  Over the years, the guys have ranked their favorites and debated the best ones.  Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the top of Cal's list and is a must see for him every year.  One year Cameron and I spent an entire Halloween season making fun of the slow run of the zombies in "Night of the Living Dead."  Scream has been my favorite scary movie since it first premiered in the 1990s and I've enjoyed sharing that one with everyone as well. Meg has never loved scary movies, but will watch all of the Halloween specials with "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" being her #1 holiday special.

Each and every year someone finds a new one scary movie or Halloween special hat none of us have seen.  Sometimes they are new productions such as The Muppets Haunted Mansion which aired a few years ago.  Other times it's a forgotten or never seen classic that one of us stumbles across.  That is what happened this week.  Cal texted Sunday night to let us know that he had rented the 1980 horror movie, The Fog.  I had either forgotten about it or had never seen it.  When Doug and I read that it was a John Carpenter film starring Jamie Lee Curtis, we just had to watch it too.  The movie was definitely the weakest of his films, but still had enough jump scares to keep us entertained.  The plot reminded Doug of The Blob, while I thought it was more like Pirates of the Caribbean.  We were surprised to see the actress that played "Annie" from Halloween in it and even more so with Janet Leigh's cameo.  The special effects were a little cheesy, but overall it was worth watching once.  Cal's only complaint was the ending, but otherwise enjoyed watching it too.  Brett even decided to give it a shot this afternoon before our rental time ran out.  Once it ended, he thought he would try watching the 2005 version as well to compare the two.  I don't know if we will join him for that viewing, but we were glad to have found a "new" horror film to start scary movie month off with this year.  Can't wait to see what we chose next.