Fog: “a weather condition in which very small drops of water come together to form a thick cloud close to the land or sea, making it difficult to see” Cambridge Dictionary
Not long after I graduated from university, I worked on a funded project at a horticultural research station that happened to be located not far from a lake. One day I had to go over to the experimental building to check on something I can’t recall other than that it required a wrench. The quickest way to get there was through the rose garden. A thick fog had rolled in, so here I was, trudging through the rose paths and swinging a heavy wrench.
I was thoroughly enjoying the walk, and for some reason it reminded me of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, one scene in particular. So I found myself tolling the wrench like a medieval bell and crying, “Bring out your dead, bring out your dead,” in a British accent.
Luckily the fog was so dense that it obscured the sound, and no one ever noticed my few minutes of atmospheric silliness, although I still snicker about it years later
The point is that fog lends itself to flights of the imagination. It shrouds the world in mystery, hiding a criminal’s dark doings, or ghostly pirates, or slithering monsters. It’s a gift not only to Halloween party planners but also to writers and countless film-makers.
And it just looks really cool.
Except when you’re trying to drive through it and can’t see past a few yards. During that same work term, I ran into a heavy bank of it on the morning highway, and narrowly avoided a 44-car pileup. I was one of only a handful of employees who made it in to work that day.
Fog obscures reality. It stretches the boundaries of what’s outside our window – there could be anything out there that we don’t know about.
Did you know that fog is basically a cloud down along the ground? While it’s composed of condensed water vapor, it will only form when the air contains pollutants like dust. The vapour then forms tiny droplets around these minute solid particles. Sea fog forms when vapour condenses around bits of salt, for example.
The air must be very humid for fog to form, so it’s a natural around lakes and oceans. But why did my hubby and I drive into a wide blanket of it on top of the Niagara Escarpment the other day? It was glorious, to be sure, and not so bad that we couldn’t see the road, but it seemed so odd when we’d climbed around six hundred feet above all the large lakes in the area. However, there’d been a lot of rain in previous days, and it was still strewn across most of the fields in vast puddles. A temperature inversion could have gathered up the humidity and played with it.
Grand Banks off the coast of Newfoundland is the foggiest place in the world. There the warm Gulf Stream from the Atlantic Ocean collides with the cold Labrador Current, creating almost daily dense fog. Watch this video by Andrew Perry, “Fog rolling over Long Range Mountains in Lark Harbour Newfoundland”, (click on the screenshot below) for a scene that looks like it climbed straight out of a Stephen King novel.
When a writer or a film-maker injects fog into a story, it usually means that something creepy is afoot. I’ve used it myself, since I write paranormal thrillers. In fact, whenever a Gate to one of the metaphysical Roads in my novels activates, it generates mist as the environments outside and inside the Gate’s event horizon meet.
Fog works really well to create a sense of unease. It tends to isolate people into their own small pocket of visibility. It deadens sound. And it obscures whatever may be beyond. All of these factors can create disorientation, distrust, fright. It’s perfect for horror movies.
Fog has a respectable pedigree in films. In quite a few, it’s a major character in its own right. Stephen King’s horror novella The Mist features a strange fog enveloping a small town, trapping quite a few residents inside a grocery store as it descends. Any who try to escape vanish screaming. King plays out an interesting scenario as the residents panic and a religious zealot tries to convince them that the mist is God’s vengeance for their sins – requiring a sacrifice. The movie version is eerily effective as the fog rolls in, slowly and ominously.
Another movie that made great use of fog as a harbinger of doom was John Carpenter’s The Fog (1980). In it, a mysterious, glowing fog creeps in from the sea to take over another small town. The movie was a relatively low-budget production, but used dark settings and the desolation of the town to great effect.
A much earlier British film called The City of the Dead (Horror Hotel in the United States) shrouded a small Massachusetts town (it’s always the small towns that disappear into the fog, isn’t it) as a young college student comes to research witchcraft on the advice of her professor, played by the almost-always sinister Christopher Lee. The fog conceals the town’s sins, as the student discovers during her investigations.
And of course, there’s The Haunted Palace. , the film made by Roger Corman of H.P. Lovecraft’s novel, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. With Vincent Price and another creepy seaside Massachusetts village that exudes fog, how can anything but disaster befall? (See my previous blog post, The Lovecraft Legacy, for more info about author Lovecraft’s enduring influence on books and film.)
My hubby and I love visiting haunted attractions in October (well, mostly me), and of course they all use fog for effect. It’s one of the easiest ways to create a spooky atmosphere throughout a large area. Several years ago we arrived at Busch Gardens in Virginia mid-afternoon to walk around and get our bearings, but we were really there for the fantastic evening event, Howl-o-Scream. We had a delicious dinner, and as dusk fell fog began to arise from behind bushes, until the place resembled a horror movie. Lanterns glowed eerily as we wandered through the mists to enjoy the night’s haunted entertainments. So much fun!
I definitely recommend Howl-o-Scream for an autumn visit some time. It’s more edgy than Disney, but still fun enough for kids, and, at least when we were there, there was only a single, reasonable ticket price for the entire day. (At the present time the theme park hasn’t posted 2026 info.)
During this time of Halfoween, as we approach the exact opposite point on the calendar (known as Walpurgis Nacht, the night of the year when it was believed that witches celebrated a sabbath and evil powers were at their strongest), I’ve provided you with more ideas on how to ward off the evil by the light of your reading lamp or your television 😉 Make some tea or hot chocolate, pull up a chair, and get to it!
And no, I’m not going to tell you what’s in the fog. You must find out for yourself.
Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. E. L. Doctorow