Welcome to another edition of Over/Under Movies, the podcast in which we choose one overrated film and one underrated film — similar in tone, genre, style, or however we may see fit — and we discuss them.
Every year during Autumn, each of us go through a round of horror-themed or horror-inspired picks. We usually do them throughout the month of October, but as usual, life gets in the way. But, because it’s still fall, and because we love horror films and watch them all year long anyway, we’re still trekking forward. This first round is my co-host Oktay Ege Kozak‘s picks, fitting together as a precipitation-themed double bill. We start with the overrated pick, which is John Carpenter‘s “The Fog,” the director’s 1980 follow-up to “Halloween.” The film’s reception was mixed during its release, but has slowly started to become appreciated as a cult classic. While we find a lot to like about it (the score is one of Carpenter’s very best), we also note how the movie is kind of a mess and how the different types of horror within the film rarely gel together.
The underrated pick is Frank Darabont‘s 2007 Stephen King adaptation of “The Mist,” which has also garnered appreciation in the decade since its release. But upon rewatching it, we ponder why this isn’t as well regarded as Darabont’s other King adaptations (“The Shawshank Redemption,” “The Green Mile“), and assume it is because of the genre-bent that have some people looking down on it. We argue that it manages to be both an effective horror film, a social commentary, and a bleak outlook that couldn’t be more appropriate to our current times.
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