A Face in the Fog: A dusty, weird little murder mystery

Is it worth your time?

If you have a soft spot for 1930s B-movies that feel like they were held together with tape and sheer willpower, you’ll probably have a decent time. If you need your mysteries to make sense or look expensive, steer clear. This is definitely for the crowd that enjoys watching old film reels just to see what kind of weird, forgotten choices people made back then.

A Face in the Fog is one of those movies that exists in a weird gray space. It’s not quite a thriller, but it’s too grim to be an adventure. It feels a lot like sitting through a long, strange radio play where someone occasionally remembered to turn the cameras on.

The Fiend and his bullets

The whole gimmick is this "Fiend" guy and his special bullets. It’s an oddly specific detail that the movie leans on way too hard. Every time they find one, it feels like the director is shouting, "See? The mystery!" But honestly, the bullet matters way less than the constant, thick layer of fog that seems to be inside the rooms as much as outside them.

There is a scene where a character is just staring at a wall for what feels like a week. It’s not dramatic. It’s just… a guy staring. I found myself wondering if the actor just forgot his next line and was waiting for a prompt that never came. It adds this unintentional, surreal vibe that I kind of liked.

A bit of a mess

The pacing is all over the place. One minute we’re deep in a police procedural, and the next we’re watching some musical performance that feels like it wandered in from a completely different set. It’s like the film got distracted by a shiny object halfway through shooting. Reminds me a bit of the disjointed energy you get in Screen Snapshots, Series 12, No. 13, though with way more murder.

• The lighting makes everyone look like they’re being haunted by their own shadows.
• The dialogue is so clipped and fast that I think half the actors were trying to catch a bus immediately after their take.
• The "Fiend" mask is actually kind of creepy, mostly because it looks like it was bought at a hardware store five minutes before filming started.

It’s not as polished as the big studio stuff from the era, but it’s got a personality. It’s dusty, it’s cheap, and it’s strangely compelling if you’re in the right mood. Don't go in expecting Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford levels of narrative craft. Just enjoy the fog.