It stars Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Atkins, Janet Leigh and Hal Holbrook.

On the eve of the centennial of the small coastal town Antonio Bay in Northern California, old Mr. Machen tells ghost stories to children by a campfire on the beach.

One story is about a clipper ship that crashed against the rocks nearby, causing all of its crew to drown after mistaking a campfire for a lighthouse while sailing through an unearthly fog.

The journal reveals that a century earlier, on April 21st 1880, the 6 founders of Antonio Bay (including Malone's grandfather) deliberately wrecked a clipper ship named the Elizabeth Dane, so that its wealthy, leprosy-afflicted owner Blake would not establish a leper colony nearby.

As the water touches her cassette player, a man's voice is inexplicably heard on the tape, vowing revenge, and the words "6 must die" appear on the wood before it bursts into flames.

Stevie advises her listeners to head to the town's church, but then finds herself trapped and under siege by the ghosts when the fog envelops her lighthouse.

The ghost of Blake himself seizes the gold cross and he and his crew disappear in a blinding flash of light as the fog miraculously vanishes.

The Fog's central themes are revenge and the resurfacing of "repressed past events" in small-town America,[4] as it focuses on the supernatural vengeance inflicted on the residents of a community that has prospered from looted salvage.

When Father Patrick Malone discovers the horrible truth and brings it to the attention of Mayor Kathy Williams, she shrugs it off and dismisses any impact or introspection it might cast over the centennial.

"[6] Writer Peter Hutchings notes that, while the film contains these implicit themes, that Carpenter is "more interested in conjuring up a sinister atmosphere than he is in exploring some of the social ramifications of such a story".

[8][9] Carpenter stated that he drew additional inspiration for the story from the British film The Trollenberg Terror (1958), which dealt with monsters hiding in the clouds.

Other references that are interwoven into the film include the name of the John Houseman character "Mr. Machen" (a reference to Welsh horror fantasist Arthur Machen); a radio report that mentions Arkham Reef; and the town's coroner Dr. Phibes was named after the titular character of the horror films starring Vincent Price from the early 1970s.

"[16] In a retrospective interview, Curtis stated that her part was written into the film by Carpenter, who felt sympathy for her after the success of Halloween had failed to lead to her obtaining other roles.

[18] Carpenter and Debra Hill said the necessity of a re-shoot became especially clear to them after they realized that The Fog would have to compete with horror films that had higher gore content.

The film was given a staggered release in various cities by AVCO Embassy Pictures beginning February 1, 1980, before expanding to further locations later that month.

[27] Scream Factory released the film on Blu-ray in July 2013,[28] before reissuing it on 4K UHD on September 13, 2022, in both standard and limited SteelBook editions.

"[31] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times similarly lauded the acting, and complimented the film as "an elegant and scary thriller of the supernatural that's far more impressive and satisfying than Carpenter's grisly and pointless (but profitable) Halloween.

"[32] The New York Times's Vincent Canby praised the film's visual elements, but felt it ultimately paled in comparison to Carpenter's Halloween, describing it as "neither a rewarding ghost story nor...  science-fiction, though it borrows freely from both genres...

"[33] In his 1980 review, Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars, commenting: "The movie's made with style and energy, but it needs a better villain.

"[35] In the years following its release, The Fog has amassed a cult following,[36] and later came to be considered, as Carpenter opined regarding his creation, "a minor horror classic" though he also stated it was not his favorite film due to re-shoots and low production values.

The website's consensus reads: "A well-crafted return to horror for genre giant John Carpenter, The Fog rolls in and wraps viewers in suitably slow-building chills.

"[40] In 2018, The Guardian called it "one of the director's most atmospheric, the shots of a wave-lashed cove and fog-choked headland making the town's impending reckoning almost poetic.

Zombiemania: 80 Movies to Die For author Arnold T. Blumberg wrote that the film was "a very effective small scale chiller" and "an attempt to capture the essence of a typical spooky American folktale while simultaneously paying homage to the EC Comics of the 1950s and the then very recent Italian zombie influx.

[45][46] In 2005, the film was remade under the direction of Rupert Wainwright with a screenplay by Cooper Layne and starring Tom Welling and Maggie Grace.