John Carpenter Claims Visiting Stonehenge Inspired Making 'The Fog'

Inspiration can come from a variety of places, potentially striking you where you least expect it. In the case of John Carpenter's ghostly classic The Fog, the filmmaker claims it was a visit to Stonehenge that gave birth to the concept of supernatural sailors returning to a small ocean town to seek revenge.

"Debra Hill and I went to Europe; we went to the London Film Festival and just kind of tooled around and looked to see what we could see and what was happening," Carpenter told Consequence of Sound. "We went to Stonehenge, and it was just mysterious. The fog was rolling in, and it was just really moody. Fog is a tremendously cheap effect to do, so I thought, 'Oh, maybe we can do something with this – or make a movie out of this.' That's kind of all how it came about."

While the filmmaker claims the original effect of fog is easy to do, that doesn't mean the entire production of the film went as smoothly.

"It was grim and tough," Carpenter shared of the experience of making the movie. "I had to go back and reshoot some things to make it scarier and better. That was hard to do because it was just nerve-wracking. I don't know how much I've learned out of it; we kind of escaped ruin in that movie. It turned out alright, and it turned out very cool, but the first version of it was not that good. It wasn't scary."

The decades since the film's release have made the director feel less disappointed with the production, even if he doesn't remember much about the finished product.

"I feel good with it," Carpenter shared. "I must be really frank with you: I never watch my own movies, so I haven't seen that thing since, you know, 1980. I just don't want to watch them again. I've seen it, I've done it, let's move on. Every once in awhile, I'll see it on television and I'll stop by … and it looks pretty. [Cinematographer] Dean Cundey is great."

Carpenter's schedule is about to get much busier, as he is helping develop the TV series Tales for a Halloween Night, while also serving as executive producer of the new chapter in the Halloween franchise, which will be written/directed by David Gordon Green and Danny McBride. The filmmaker is also reportedly providing the new film with its score.

The upcoming Halloween sequel is slated for release on October 19, 2018.

[H/T Consequence of Sound]