I
happened to watch this
obscure 2008
micro-budget horror film
only because a friend of
mine and his son were
involved in the project.
(The friend as a small
investor, his son in a
minor role.) Some of the
reviews and comments on
the internet caused me
some trepidation before
I plopped it in, but Fog
Warning turned out to be
a pleasant surprise, and
many of those comments
turned out to be unfair.
The idea of the film is
original and the acting
is at least competent in
all cases, and in at
least one case,
excellent.
A small town is being
terrorized by a series
of gruesome murders in
which the victims appear
to be drained of blood.
An obese loner who
manages a comic book
shop thinks he has
solved the crimes. He is
convinced that an artsy
local woman is an
immortal vampire. After
all, how else could she
know so much about the
past? (He has apparently
never heard of any
non-comic books.) He
concocts a scheme to get
rich from the situation.
He will kidnap the
woman, get her
confession on camera,
then sell the tape to
the hungry news media.
He does manage to kidnap
her, and hten imprisons
her in an antique circus
cage which is stored in
the attic of an historic
old house he is
house-sitting until the
owner can get it
declared a national
treasure. Unfortunately
for him, he is unable to
coerce her into a
confession, so he
enlists the aid of two
thugs. They are equally
inept as
interrogators, but one
of the brain-dead
conspirators has a
younger sister who is
naive, vulnerable and
chatty, and the three
kidnappers conceive a
plan to get the putative
vampire to talk to
little sis. Meanwhile,
the lives of the
characters have not
existed in a vacuum. The
wheels of the real world
are gringing around
them. Police are
searching for the
missing woman, and other
people are visiting the
historic house.
In fact, the best thing
about the story is that
it does exist in the
real world. In fact,
it's not really a horror
film at all, once the
film gets into the
nitty-gritty of the
story, at least not in
the sense that there is
any supernatural evil
involved. There are no
real vampires, and the
kidnappers gradually
become aware of that, so
they gradually become
aware that they have
trapped themselves in a
situation which will
cost them a lifetime
prison sentence, since
they have been
imprisoning and
torturing a random
woman. This realization
leads them into ever
more desperate actions,
including murder, to
cover up their
activities. At the same
time, the caged woman is
driven ever deeper into
madness from her
imprisonment and from
the realization that the
boys are killers who
cannot possibly set her
free if they are to
avoid prison. She
becomes as desperate as
her jailers, and that
makes her even more
dangerous than the
vampire she was thought
to be. These forces must
eventually collide, with
violent consequences for
...
Well, you'll have to
figure that one out on
your own.
The film can be rough
around the edges, has
some continuity
problems, and a few flat
line readings, but I
never felt that the
flick was a waste of
time, and was rarely
taken out of the story
by a technical flaw. The
script has a few
interesting ideas and is
consistently faithful to
its premise, and the
completed film can claim
a surprisingly excellent
lead performance from
Elise Rovinsky as the kidnapped
woman. I don't know how
these novice filmmakers
persuaded an actress of
her caliber to
participate in this
local New Haven project
(she also appears in
director Christopher
Ward's only other film,
so there may be some
kind of personal
connection), but her
steady competence makes
several scenes work very
well, and that alone
would have lifted the
project to a higher
level than anticipated,
but she wasn't alone.
Some of the other
performers, like Cuyle
Carvin (as a brutal but
handsome thug), Michael
Barra (comic book guy)
and Jackie Shea (the
little sister) have also
gone on to steady
employment in the
industry. Barra even had
a small role in The
Amazing Spider Man!
If this kind of movie is
your thing, you can
watch it
on
YouTube in high
definition for
free!
Here's
the
IMDb page. It is
rated 7.3, but that is
based on a mere 26 votes
and is, to be frank, the
result of some stuffing
in the IMDb ballot box.
It's OK, but not 7.3 OK.
If you exclude the 12
people who somehow
thought this film was
the next Godfather at
10/10, the average score
is 5.0, with an equal
number of voters above
and below five.
And here's the film's
Facebook
page, where you
can find additional
interviews, reviews,
promos, etc.
The
nudity:
Ashley
Bates shows her
large breasts in the
opening scene.
Jackie
Shea, as the
chatty little sister,
shows part of her
butt
