Plot

The backstory of the film is somewhat similar to the original film: In 1871, a group of men conspired to mislead and murder the crew of the Elizabeth Dane, a clipper carrying a group of lepers seeking sanctuary. The Dane was captained by William Blake, a wealthy man infected with leprosy who made an agreement with the town’s founders to buy half of the island for a leper colony. However, when the islanders’ leaders meet with Blake onboard the Dane to make the purchase, the islanders double-cross the lepers, loot the ship and then set the ship on fire, slaughtering everyone onboard. In this film, the town of Antonio Bay is preparing to celebrate a new statue dedicated to the “founding fathers” of the town. This awakens the ghostly crew of the Elizabeth Dane, who have sworn revenge on the town for what the “founding fathers” did to them.

Writer and director, John Carpenter, was not happy with the first cut of the film and subsequently added several new scenes and re-shot others. Approximately one-third of the finished film is comprised of re-shoot footage. The film received mixed reviews when it was released, but was a commercial success. A remake was released in 2005, based on the original’s concept.

Plot

Set in a Northern California fishing town called Antonio Bay (real location Inverness, California, Point Reyes lighthouse, and the Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Sierra Madre, California). The town is about to celebrate its centennial when mysterious events, including the gruesome murders of three local fishermen, accompany a strange, glowing fog that spreads over land and sea. The local priest, Father Malone, discovers the diary of his grandfather (who was also the town’s priest), which contains a dark secret unknown to the town’s current inhabitants.

The diary reveals that, in 1880, six of the founders of Antonio Bay (including Malone’s grandfather) deliberately sunk and plundered the Elizabeth Dane, a clipper ship owned by Blake, a wealthy man with leprosy who wanted to establish a colony near Antonio Bay. The six conspirators lit a fire on the beach near treacherous rocks, and the crew of the clipper, deceived by the false beacon, crashed onto them. Everyone aboard the ship perished. The six conspirators were motivated both by greed and disgust at the notion of having a leper colony nearby. Antonio Bay and its church were then founded with the gold plundered from the ship.

The mysterious fog contains the vengeful ghosts of Blake and the clipper’s crew, who have come back on the hundredth anniversary of the shipwreck and the founding of the town to take the lives of six people (symbolic substitutes for the six conspirators).