The product of a fundamentalist household, shy & quiet Carrie White discovers that she may nest telekinetic powers. While researching these suspicions, she is soon asked to the prom by a fellow classmate. Initially reluctant and suspicious of trickery, she agrees. What follows, however, is a night that nobody at Carrie's school of Bates High will ever forget...should they live to tell about it.
So Stephen King, we meet again. We've taken a brief intermission so that I may take a break and deal with some killer women and killer animals, but you inevitably found your way back into my countdown. True, your invention of the troubled teenager Carrie White is indeed a "killer woman," but only after having her period in the shower. Guess I have to write about her all over again then.
Oh! You're asking why I decided to copy and paste my synopsis for the review that I posted of Brian De Palma's adaptation of Carrie. Well, as late as it might be over here, I figured I'd give in to laziness, as the filmmakers behind 2013's version of Carrie decided to seemingly do the same by essentially remaking his version of the film, but of course, with minor adjustments in order to satiate the modern horror movie fan. Some aspects are understandable, like the addition of more modern music into the big prom night scene, but others, like Carrie's mother driving a car with a Jesus fish on the back and the infamous "plug it up!" scene being filmed on a camera phone by other students just felt ridiculous and lead to nothing down the line (more on those particular characters in the second paragraph). There's also a heavy abundance of CGI in Carrie's notorious prom bloodbath and its aftermath, which of course, is a poor exchange for practical work. After seeing the great practical work done in something like American Mary recently, or even the reboot of The Evil Dead, it baffles me that some creators still can't get the simplest of things right and make them look convincing.
Early critics, for what ones were able to gather the information they could, made the argument that this was supposed to be the breakout role for Chloe Moretz, though she's already arguably a star. Though she doesn't have the same haunting, awkward innocence that Sissy Spacek had, she does a more than commendable job as the title character, even if she doesn't physically look like the character. I know that I said my piece about Spacek's appearance in the original film, but Moretz before prom night and day of prom night look nearly identical, and it just isn't very convincing. These minor flaws are especially apparent when she goes on her "massacre," which just didn't make you fear her, but gave you the feeling that she was like a kid in a candy store, or worse yet, a member of the X-men, whereas Spacek's ghostly appearance is now one of the most recognized in all of cinema. Okay, I'll stop with the comparisons, or at least try my best to.
Gabriella Wilde plays a fairly decent Sue Snell, the only high schooler to ever show Carrie an ounce of sympathy throughout the story, but I couldn't say the same for the rest of her classmates, who are fairly flat or just plain forgettable for the roles they are playing (whoever they cast as Billy Nolan was absolutely abysmal). This brings me to the one thing I truly regret having to talk bad about: Julianne Moore. Have you ever witnessed a performance that just feels like someone is trying too hard to go for "crazy" when it should just come naturally? That is Julianne Moore's Margaret White, and it breaks my heart to see her turn in something so mediocre when you know she is a much more capable actress than this. I do love this woman, I truly do. She is rarely bad in anything she chooses (notice that I said rarely), and I know she was taking this role originally from Jodie Foster, which is ironically the second time she's done this from the woman in the horror field (the first being Hannibal). No matter the amount of times it has been done though, she borders on comical at points in Carrie and is a poor substitution for Piper Laurie, which is all the more bizarre when a considerably large amount of her behavior and mannerisms seems lifted from Laurie's own portrayal of the character.
After all is said and done, I think this will end up going into the pile of remakes or re-imaginings that muster mostly "meh"s from its viewers. While I can still give it small points for having things that are more faithful to the original source material, such as naming the gym teacher Miss Desjardin (something De Palma didn't do in his movie) and keeping a more faithful ending, there just isn't a large rhyme or reason for its existence, save for Moretz to have another starring vehicle under her belt, and you're much better off revisiting the more brilliant De Palma classic (unless you hate watching horror films made prior to the 1980s). Like the remakes of A Nightmare On Elm Street, Black Christmas, or Halloween, you can just pretend that this one doesn't exist. In fact, it would be for the best that we all just let the story of the Whites be laid to rest, and work on fixing and readapting some other Stephen King works for the big screen.
Tomorrow, we're taking a trip back to the 80s and into the CLOWNHOUSE!
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