Things don't get much worse than catching your bird snogging the crumbling face off a spectral skull in a graveyard.

That's just one indignity suffered by charter boat skipper Nick Castle (Tom Welling) after a bit of supernatural meteorogical bother - fog to you and me - descends on his fishing port.

It seems that the founding fathers of Antonio Bay committed an unspeakable act more than a century before which sent the passengers of a sea-clipper to the ocean floor.

After Nick's anchor disturbs artefacts from the past - a gold hairbrush, a pocket-watch and a musical box - he wakes their restless spirits and sets off a dripping revenge.

The first victim is a local mutt whose carcass is found smouldering on the decking and then Nick's first mate Brett has a nasty encounter with a bank of fog when he takes out the boat with a couple of bimboes on board.

It's up to Nick and his girlfriend Elizabeth (Grace) - "ever since I came home horrible things have been happening" - to piece together the malevolent mist-ery.

This is well-made horror hokum - even if the plot has more holes than a snagged fishing net and a barrel-load of chiller cliches to navigate.

There's the wizened beachcomber who's called upon to deliver dire warnings, a whisky-sodden priest (natch!) and a spectral - artfully backlit - sea-clipper cruising through the mist.

On the plus side, Selma Blair is on fine form as the single-mum and local DJ and the end refreshingly steers clear of the Hollywood teenage terror template.

British director Rupert Wainwright has actually improved on John Carpenter's leaden orginal and concocts an on-the-money late-night horror romp for teens.

Think damp spirits, frightened fisherfolk...and an awful lot of dry ice.

Tim Evans