This is the US 30×40 for John Carpenter’s excellent supernatural horror The Fog, the next cinema release following the directors’ 1978 horror masterpiece Halloween. The film is set in the fictional Californian fishing town of Antonio Bay which is about to celebrate its centennial. What the current residents don’t know is that the town holds a terrible secret; the six original founders deliberately wrecked the Elizabeth Dane, a ship containing a wealthy man named Blake and his five companions who were all suffering from leprosy and wanted to establish a colony nearby. After plundering the wreck and stealing the gold onboard, the conspirators went on to establish Antonio Bay and deliberately covered up their actions.
As the celebrations are being prepared, a mysterious fog bank rolls off the sea which enshrouds the town and surrounding area. Off the coast, a local trawler is also enveloped and the crew subjected to an attack by mysterious glowing-eyed apparitions. Around the same time a young hitchhiker named Elizabeth Solley (Halloween star Jamie Lee Curtis) is picked up on the outskirts of the town by local resident Nick Castle (genre stalwart Tom Atkins). As the pair are driving through the fog into town Nick’s vehicle mysteriously cuts out and all the windows shatter without warning. Local radio DJ Stevie Wayne (played by gorgeous ‘scream queen’ Adrienne Barbeau), who broadcasts from a lighthouse on a cliff above the town, is handed a piece of driftwood with ‘Dane’ inscribed on it. She takes it back to her studio only for the wood to trigger a strange sequence of events that culminates with a mysterious voice intoning that ‘six must die’. Over the next few hours the town is subjected to a series of terrifying attacks as Blake and his crew return from their watery graves to claim six souls in revenge for their treatment at the hands of the town’s founders.
The lighthouse featured in the film is actually the Point Reyes lighthouse which is situated to the north of San Francisco in California. In 2010 I visited the lighthouse and it’s an incredibly spooky place, even in bright sunshine. There is a constantly sounding foghorn which is used to warn ships away from a series of underwater rocks just off the coast. I spotted a series of whales moving past the point whilst I was there too. It’s well worth the trip if you’re ever in that area of the world.
I also have the Japanese B2 poster that can be viewed here and the scarce horizontal Japanese B1 poster.
This is the Japanese B2 poster for John Carpenter’s excellent supernatural horror The Fog, the next cinema release following the directors’ 1978 horror masterpiece Halloween. The film is set in the fictional Californian fishing town of Antonio Bay which is about to celebrate its centennial. What the current residents don’t know is that the town holds a terrible secret; the six original founders deliberately wrecked the Elizabeth Dane, a ship containing a wealthy man named Blake and his five companions who were all suffering from leprosy and wanted to establish a colony nearby. After plundering the wreck and stealing the gold onboard, the conspirators went on to establish Antonio Bay and deliberately covered up their actions.
As the celebrations are being prepared, a mysterious fog bank rolls off the sea which enshrouds the town and surrounding area. Off the coast, a local trawler is also enveloped and the crew subjected to an attack by mysterious glowing-eyed apparitions. Around the same time a young hitchhiker named Elizabeth Solley (Halloween star Jamie Lee Curtis) is picked up on the outskirts of the town by local resident Nick Castle (genre stalwart Tom Atkins). As the pair are driving through the fog into town Nick’s vehicle mysteriously cuts out and all the windows shatter without warning. Local radio DJ Stevie Wayne (played by gorgeous ‘scream queen’ Adrienne Barbeau), who broadcasts from a lighthouse on a cliff above the town, is handed a piece of driftwood with ‘Dane’ inscribed on it. She takes it back to her studio only for the wood to trigger a strange sequence of events that culminates with a mysterious voice intoning that ‘six must die’. Over the next few hours the town is subjected to a series of terrifying attacks as Blake and his crew return from their watery graves to claim six souls in revenge for their treatment at the hands of the town’s founders.
The lighthouse featured in the film is actually the Point Reyes lighthouse which is situated to the north of San Francisco in California. In 2010 I visited the lighthouse and it’s an incredibly spooky place, even in bright sunshine. There is a constantly sounding foghorn which is used to warn ships away from a series of underwater rocks just off the coast. I spotted a series of whales moving past the point whilst I was there too. It’s well worth the trip if you’re ever in that area of the world.
I also have the Japanese B1 poster that can be viewed here.
Excellent artwork by Carl Ramsey for the 80s zombie classic featuring the memorable Linnea Quigley (represented here in her undead form). When I first saw the film I was a little mystified by her ‘Barbie doll’ look (smooth bump) when she’s naked in the graveyard and only later found out that one of the producers made her wear prosthetics to cover up her privates. I can only imagine that it confused a lot of impressionable teenagers who were watching this back in the 1980s.
I recently bought the blu-ray and have to say the film still holds up really well – the creature designs and music are particular standouts. I’m definitely going to pick up ‘The Complete History of the Return of the Living Dead’ book, which is meant to be excellent.
The original trailer is on YouTube.
The Greatest Film Ever Made (IMDb) was re-released with a brief cinema run on its 10th anniversary in 2004. Director Frank Darabont approached legendary illustrator Drew Struzan and asked him to work on the poster. This design is featured in the brilliant book ‘The Art of Drew Struzan’ (available at Amazon.com & Amazon.co.uk).
The book reveals several of the other designs that he and Darabont worked on together and explains how the pair first met:
You know how I met Frank Darabont? He ordered two copies of the Creature from the Black Lagoon print and liked them so much he called me on the phone, out of the blue, to thank me and ask to meet. Frank became my friend through his appreciation of my work, same as Guillermo [Del Toro].
Once Frank approached Drew to work on the Shawshank re-release poster the pair quickly struck up a close working relationship:
Warner Bros. Home Video was ready to accept whatever Frank wanted, so I did some comps [comprehensive roughs] directly for him. The trouble with working a director who loves my stuff: He couldn’t decide what he wanted: he wanted them all! He ultimately chose my reprise of Tim Robbins in the rain for the cover.
Drew clearly has a fond recollection of the project and remarks on the fact that the style of painting stands out from the rest of his work:
It was a real blessing – he got me the job, he used the art, and I got to do a kind of painting that is completely different from what I had done for movie posters. The experience was all about Frank. We didn’t meet in some office; he came over to my house, we collaborated, I showed him my pictures, and he watched me work.
And the fate of the other comps that can be seen in the Art of Drew Struzan book?
In the end, they’re hanging in his house because he fell in love with the art, and I fell in love with him.
The original US one sheet is the single photographic image of Andy (Tim Robbins) in the rain after his escape and, whilst that image is a well-known one, I do prefer Drew’s moody collage. The use of light and dark on the faces is superbly done and the layout of each of the characters works very well.
The other posters in my Drew Struzan collection can be seen here.
