Carrie

Carrie

Starring Chloe Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Gabriella Wilde, Portia Doubleday

Directed by Kimberly Peirce

Young Carrie White (Chloe Grace Moretz) is a very secluded, isolated, and plain girl.  She's kept isolated by her overly religious mother Margaret (Julianne Moore) and kept from the knowledge of average everyday life, including the moment when a girl becomes a woman, which results in her being horribly tortured and made fun of by the other girls after gym class one day, especially from Chris (Portia Doubleday).

Chris's best friend, Sue (Gabriella Wilde) and her boyfriend Tommy (Ansel Elgort), along with gym teacher Ms. Desjardin (Judy Greer) feel bad for what happened to Carrie, and Sue even offers Billy to take Carrie to their senior prom.  Meanwhile, Carrie is beginning to harness a special power of telekinesis after the event.  At first she fears it, but she begins to learn and control it, much to Margaret's horror.

Carrie agrees to go to the prom with Billy, and Chris and her boyfriend Billy (Alex Russell) plan to humiliate Carrie at the prom by rigging the prom queen ballot, so Carrie would win and then Chris and Billy would dump pigs' blood on her.  What they don't know is once this happens, all literal hell will break loose, and Carrie's powers will come to full, destructive force.

Back in 1976, director Brian De Palma (who would later go on to direct "Scarface," "The Untouchables" and "Mission: Impossible") brought to life Stephen King's first novel about a shy, homely looking girl who gains telekinetic powers to get revenge on those who made fun of her.  The original starred Sissy Spacek as Carrie and Piper Laurie as Carrie's mother, and their performances led both of them to Oscar nominations (for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively).  This was a rare event for a horror film, and shows just how amazing the original was.

Now, in 2013, director Kimberly Peirce (who directed great dramas such as "Stop-Loss" and the Oscar-winner "Boys Don't Cry") decides to take Stephen King's novel for a re-tooling, adding in aspects of the book that wasn't mentioned in the first film.  Those additions were very good to telling the whole story, but overall the remake, as per usual, isn't as good as the original.

That's not to blame any of the actors in the film.  Julianne Moore gives a haunting performance as Carrie's overly-zealous mother.  She showcases why she is one of today's most talented actresses, but even she couldn't compare to Laurie's performance. 

The casting of Grace Moretz as Carrie was a puzzling one, because Carrie is supposed to be a girl that's very unattractive, someone who wouldn't be noticed by anyone.  Chloe is an amazingly beautiful actress and she struggles in the film to be "ordinary."  Once again, it's not a strike against her as an acting talent - she delivers a powerhouse performance here - but it's not as good as Spacek's performance.

The other actors work with what they had, but even they seem like very one-dimensional caricatures.  The lead mean girl - Chris - is just mean because...well...we never really know.  Some people are just inherently mean, but her severe hatred for Carrie is never really divulged, and you wonder what the heck she did to incite such anger.  On the flip side, Sue becomes too overly nice to Carrie - nice enough to give up her dream of going to prom - so Carrie could go with her boyfriend.  Once again, it isn't really revealed why she was being so over-the-top nice to Carrie, and makes her to be another one-note creation.

Of course, these are all moot points, because anyone who's ever heard of the movie or read the book are just waiting for the eventual prom scene, and that's where the remake shines greater than the original, due to better effects of today.  Carrie's telekinesis breakdown is truly breathtaking, and the carnage is absolute.  There's a lot of blood, a lot of death, and a lot of action, everything you would expect from a "Carrie" remake.

So if you don't compare the remake to the original, you'll enjoy it.  If you overly compare the two, you'll hate it.  I opted to see it as something new and not a remake so I could enjoy it fully.  But still, I'd go with the original.

My Rating: B+