Carrie
Directed by: Kimberly Peirce
Written by: Lawrence D. Cohen, Robert Aguirre-Sacasa, based on the novel by Stephen King
Starring: Chloe Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Gabriella Wilde, Portia Doubleday, Alex Russell, Zoe Belkin, Ansel Elgort, Samantha Weinstein, Karissa Strain, Judy Greer, Barry Shabaka Henley
Drama/Horror - 100 min
Written by: Lawrence D. Cohen, Robert Aguirre-Sacasa, based on the novel by Stephen King
Starring: Chloe Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Gabriella Wilde, Portia Doubleday, Alex Russell, Zoe Belkin, Ansel Elgort, Samantha Weinstein, Karissa Strain, Judy Greer, Barry Shabaka Henley
Drama/Horror - 100 min
Just in time for Halloween and chasing the dollars of teenagers looking for a thrill and a scare is a remake of a horror classic, Carrie. At least the second effort remains faithful to the original material and isn’t some genetically-modified Carrie 2: The Return of Carrie. Looking beyond the mundane repetition of tweaking a film someone else has already made, the new Carrie will not make you yell at studio execs for green-lighting another horror rip-off. Perhaps the original material is strong enough to overcome another director’s ‘take’ on the material, even though that ‘take’ is eerily similar to the first version.
Carrie (Chloe Grace Moretz) remains ostracized by her classmates, frightened of her mother’s religious fanaticism, and forever confused by a complicated world she does not understand. Margaret White aka Mama (Julianne Moore) is no help to poor Carrie. Instead of acknowledging her own sins including having at least one bout of unprotected and out of wedlock nookie with some guy resulting in a bastard daughter, Mama habitually hurls Carrie into a Harry Potter broom closet under the stairs to pray her way out of being such a sinful little girl.
Going to school is no refuge for Carrie, it is even worse than staying at home. Carrie talks to no one, hides behind her hair, and does her best to blend in to the floors and walls. Blindsiding a thoroughly ignorant Carrie in the absolute worst place in any high school, the gym shower, she starts bleeding down her legs. Carrie has never heard of menstruation and thinks she is dying. While we all remember the ‘plug it up’ scene from Brain De Palma’s 1976 movie, this version is even worse because Sissy Spacek at least did not have the mortifying event saved for posterity by a camera phone.
Most of the remaining plot and scenes are the exact same from Carrie’s first incarnation. The school villains antagonize Carrie for being different, Sue Snell (Gabriella Wilde) and her boyfriend have guilty consciences, the gym teacher (Judy Greer) tries to protect Carrie as best she can, and through all of this, Carrie is changing in more ways than just becoming a woman; she harnesses potent mental powers. Discovering her telekinetic abilities to move objects from here to there just by using her mind and minimal hand motions allows lonesome Carrie to escape the cruel realities of everyday life. They also hand her a way off the island.
I wonder why folks consider Carrie to be such a strong and classic case study in the horror genre. There is no horror until the film’s climax and even then it is at most a violent action film. Instead of using an assault rifle to take revenge on the world at the prom, she uses her mind. Is it horror because the power comes from inside her rather than her trigger finger? Carrie may be misclassified as a horror film, but the story remains absorbing and memorable.
Now for the comparisons. Chloe Grace Moretz is nowhere near as Plain Jane as Sissy Spacek was. Carrie is almost pretty at the start of this film. She attempts to be just as awkward, introverted, and scared of her own shadow, but Moretz has such a strong and confident screen presence, it is hard to truly believe her as such a bland character as Carrie. Moretz is a fine actress (how is this just a few years removed from the young girl she was in 2011’s Hugo), but to be faithful to the Carrie from the pages of Stephen King’s novel or the ‘70s film, they should have casted down, not up.
Julianne Moore looks like she has some fun as Mama warning everyone about these Godless times we live in and self-mutilating herself because…well…we don’t know why she does that. We also run into the same limitations the first film struggled against. We get no backstory for Mama and we only get a few glimpses of the most interesting aspect of Carrie, the telekinesis. High school proms and petty teenage problems are fascinating and all, but how about focusing on what really makes Carrie such a juicy story, her power.
Remaking a film everybody still remembers is an audacious thing to do (looking at you Gus Van Sant and your ridiculous Psycho homage). Director Kimberly Peirce stays safe and doesn’t hurt it, but she doesn’t take it anywhere it hasn’t been before either. For a Halloween movie treat, you could do far worse, but I have no doubt there are other classics you still need to watch before you dive into new remakes.
Carrie (Chloe Grace Moretz) remains ostracized by her classmates, frightened of her mother’s religious fanaticism, and forever confused by a complicated world she does not understand. Margaret White aka Mama (Julianne Moore) is no help to poor Carrie. Instead of acknowledging her own sins including having at least one bout of unprotected and out of wedlock nookie with some guy resulting in a bastard daughter, Mama habitually hurls Carrie into a Harry Potter broom closet under the stairs to pray her way out of being such a sinful little girl.
Going to school is no refuge for Carrie, it is even worse than staying at home. Carrie talks to no one, hides behind her hair, and does her best to blend in to the floors and walls. Blindsiding a thoroughly ignorant Carrie in the absolute worst place in any high school, the gym shower, she starts bleeding down her legs. Carrie has never heard of menstruation and thinks she is dying. While we all remember the ‘plug it up’ scene from Brain De Palma’s 1976 movie, this version is even worse because Sissy Spacek at least did not have the mortifying event saved for posterity by a camera phone.
Most of the remaining plot and scenes are the exact same from Carrie’s first incarnation. The school villains antagonize Carrie for being different, Sue Snell (Gabriella Wilde) and her boyfriend have guilty consciences, the gym teacher (Judy Greer) tries to protect Carrie as best she can, and through all of this, Carrie is changing in more ways than just becoming a woman; she harnesses potent mental powers. Discovering her telekinetic abilities to move objects from here to there just by using her mind and minimal hand motions allows lonesome Carrie to escape the cruel realities of everyday life. They also hand her a way off the island.
I wonder why folks consider Carrie to be such a strong and classic case study in the horror genre. There is no horror until the film’s climax and even then it is at most a violent action film. Instead of using an assault rifle to take revenge on the world at the prom, she uses her mind. Is it horror because the power comes from inside her rather than her trigger finger? Carrie may be misclassified as a horror film, but the story remains absorbing and memorable.
Now for the comparisons. Chloe Grace Moretz is nowhere near as Plain Jane as Sissy Spacek was. Carrie is almost pretty at the start of this film. She attempts to be just as awkward, introverted, and scared of her own shadow, but Moretz has such a strong and confident screen presence, it is hard to truly believe her as such a bland character as Carrie. Moretz is a fine actress (how is this just a few years removed from the young girl she was in 2011’s Hugo), but to be faithful to the Carrie from the pages of Stephen King’s novel or the ‘70s film, they should have casted down, not up.
Julianne Moore looks like she has some fun as Mama warning everyone about these Godless times we live in and self-mutilating herself because…well…we don’t know why she does that. We also run into the same limitations the first film struggled against. We get no backstory for Mama and we only get a few glimpses of the most interesting aspect of Carrie, the telekinesis. High school proms and petty teenage problems are fascinating and all, but how about focusing on what really makes Carrie such a juicy story, her power.
Remaking a film everybody still remembers is an audacious thing to do (looking at you Gus Van Sant and your ridiculous Psycho homage). Director Kimberly Peirce stays safe and doesn’t hurt it, but she doesn’t take it anywhere it hasn’t been before either. For a Halloween movie treat, you could do far worse, but I have no doubt there are other classics you still need to watch before you dive into new remakes.
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