The fog - 1979

It was still good. The credits say 1979 but the story is supposed to take place in 1980, 100 years after 1880.  It sure shows its age, but it’s in no way boring, it builts up to the end. I liked it. Not something I’d watch again and again, but I enjoyed it this one time.
It starts with a ghost-story around the fire, for a group of children camping. Mr Machen (John Houseman) tells them of a ship that sank right there 100 years before. A strange fog appeared and they couldn’t see a thing so they followed the only light they saw but it turned out to be the light of a campfire, and they hit the rocks and they all died. The old man tells the children that now, at midnight, the ghosts of that crew, of the “Elizabeth Dane”, search everywhere to find the campers that lead them to their death.
It was rather atmospheric but I thought, that’s not fair, maybe those campers had no idea they would cause such damage, it may not be their fault at all. Later my objection finds its answer.
Immediately after the story we meet, and hear, Stevie Wayne (Adrienne Barbeau) with her smooth sexy voice. She owns a radio station inside the lighthouse, and every night she’s on, at least from midnight to 1am, it’s not clear to me if anything goes on when she’s not there... 
We meet the other characters: Nick (Tom Atkins) who picks up a hitchhiker, Elizabeth (Jamie Lee Curtis). Mrs Williams (Janet Leigh) who is organizing the town celebration, 100 years of Antonio Bay, and her assistant Sandy (Nancy Loomis), and Father Malone (Hal Holbrook).
The first night at the beginning of the movie the fog comes and out of it come some ghost-zombies that kill three men on a boat. During that same hour strange things happen in town, things moving by themselves, car alarms going off, dogs barking at the sea, car windows smashing... the zombies arrive at Nick’s house and one of them knocks, but luckily for Nick 1am strikes before he opens the door so he’s safe. 
During the day they search for the boat and its crew, and only find one corpse. At the morgue, it rises the time necessary to scratch the number three on the floor. We easily assume it’s the number of dead people so far. 
Father Malone finds a journal hidden in the wall in the church: it was written by his great-grandfather, another father Malone, and it tells the true story of the Elizabeth Dane. A wealthy man, Blake, a leper, wanted to use his money to build a colony nearby, and Malone felt pity for him but also horror at the idea that they’d have a leper colony so close. With other five people they planned to stop him, to lure Blake and his crew to their deaths, by lighting a fire that would lead them the wrong way. It worked, helped by some kind of strange fog, and the ship sank and they all died and the colony was never built. The town people took hold of Blake’s gold and used it to build Antonio Bay apparently.
When night comes and the fog rises again, Stevie monitors the situation from the lighthouse; she can hear on the phone her weather-man-friend getting killed by ‘something in the fog’ - yes, never listen to the woman, don’t mind the fog, go answer the door, why not...
She can see the fog moving towards her house and warns her son and the babysitter to run away but they don’t have the radio on, lights are out, so they don’t hear her, and the old woman opens the door because she heard a knock and is killed too - yes, don’t bother asking who it is, alone at home with a child at night with a strange deep fog all around you, you hear a sinister knock at the door you go and open it of course...
Nick and Elizabeth are in the car and listen to Stevie and hurry to her house to save her little son. The fog moves further into the town, and she warns everyone who listens to stay inside or run to the old church. Nick drives there, and also Mrs Williams and Sandy, after leaving the celebration because of the dark. Father Malone tells them all about his ancestor and the story of the six conspirators, and reading on they learn that the priest-conspirator stole the money found in the ship and hid it from the others, thinking that he’d give it back to Blake if he came for vengeance. Also, it appears that ‘only six will die’, because six were the conspirators. The gold was used to make a big gold cross then hidden in the wall, and now Father Malone wants to give it to Blake, offering himself as the sixth. Blake takes the gold, and it shines, but Nick pulls Malone away at the last moment so Blake vanishes with the gold but without him. All of the sudden the fog goes away along with the zombie that were trying to kill Stevie at the lighthouse. 
Everything’s over, it seems, but Malone wonders why Blake didn’t take the sixth, when the fog comes again in the church and Blake kills him. The end.
While watching it it was interesting and thrilling enough, but after it’s over I can’t help wondering: five had died already (three on the boat, the weather-man and the old babysitter) so if the zombies had killed the child or Stevie, everything would be over anyway, or would they still be looking for the gold? If only six must die, why attack everyone at the same time? Let’s not even start on the fact that all the townspeople reunited in the open for the celebration were never concerned by it. 
Thinking about it afterwards it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it was still a nice watch.
ITA fog-nebbia assassina