I've got to hand it to Sony Pictures, they've achieved what I thought was impossible, and released The Fog with absolutely no advance press. I hunted around the usual local media sites last week to try and scope out a promo screening, to no avail, and considering that - as of right now - there are no reviews listed on Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic, I have to believe they were equally successful in other markets.
It's surprising, because even when a film isn't shown to the press, there are usually screenings scheduled for radio stations or local papers. This goes double for horror, which in the past has been a largely critic-proof genre. The recent glut of lousy PG-13 "horror" movies (any guesses on what The Fog is rated?) has changed all that, however, with the end result being there wasn't even a screening I could sneak into as I've other writers have done in the past.
The great irony of all this is that it's unlikely The Fog remake would've scored lower than Domino (15% on the Tomatometer) - where a vast majority of critics seem to be coming over to my way of thinking about Tony Scott's nauseating directorial "style" - or even Elizabethtown (33%) - which, in my opinion, might be Cameron Crowe's worst. Movie. Ever.
And yes, I'm including The Wild Life.