Carrie. (15.)
Directed by Kimberley Pierce.
Starring Chloe Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Judy Greer, Portia Doubleday, Alex Russell and Gabriella Wilde. 109 mins
Carrie is an odd path to be re-treading. It is traditionally connected with launching rather than revisiting – the book started Stephen King’s career and the film version in 1976 was Brian De Palma’s first hit. The main players here are already established. Moretz is trying to cement her teenage movie stardom while Pierce is aiming to regain some of the lustre her career had around the time she made Boys Don’t Cry.
Their take is very different from the 1976 film, while in many ways being exactly the same. If De Palma’s film was a gaudy, callous, split screen freak show, this is more like a social worker’s report, full of compassion and understanding for all concerned.
Our sympathies are instinctively with Carrie (Moretz), an awkward, friendless teenager who is struggling with the knowledge that she has telekinetic powers. Her life is battered between the twin miseries of her Christian fanatic mother (Moore), who believes that she is possessed by demons and a bullying clique of teen girls at school, led by Chris (Doubleday.) The cunning twist is that we are siding with the monster and by the end both the villains have been, to some extent, vindicated.
Possibly Carrie’s main virtue as a horror tale is that it really makes use of blood. It is a substance that gets chucked about with some abandon in these types of films but here every drop - whether it is from childbirth, menstrual or from a slaughtered pig - is accounted for and is important. One of this version’s major additions is an unsettling opening scene in which her mother gives birth to Carrie. lt makes audiences squirm while efficiently establishing their fraught relationship.
Pierce’s film has fine performances and strong characterisations. Moore is the obvious stand out but Doubleday’s Chris is something more than the usual teen bitch. In fact she is presented as being possibly sociopathic. Moretz is a decent Carrie and around the right age, but there’s no way she could dislodge Sissy Spacek as the definitive performance. This is the true of the film as a whole: it does well but there is very little room for it to offer anything new. Despite claiming to be a new version of the book, its structure is that of the first film. The special effects are much improved but there isn’t a great call for them. In fact Carrie starts to perfect her powers too early and comes across as more X-Man rather than an awkward, gifted child.
Most crucially the film has no answer for De Palma’s classic final scene. It can’t top it, it can’t copy it so it just kind of leaves it. After Let Me In, the remake of Let The Right One In, Moretz seems to be specialising in thoroughbred horror remakes that fall down at the last hurdle.
Directed by Kimberley Pierce.
Starring Chloe Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Judy Greer, Portia Doubleday, Alex Russell and Gabriella Wilde. 109 mins
Carrie is an odd path to be re-treading. It is traditionally connected with launching rather than revisiting – the book started Stephen King’s career and the film version in 1976 was Brian De Palma’s first hit. The main players here are already established. Moretz is trying to cement her teenage movie stardom while Pierce is aiming to regain some of the lustre her career had around the time she made Boys Don’t Cry.
Their take is very different from the 1976 film, while in many ways being exactly the same. If De Palma’s film was a gaudy, callous, split screen freak show, this is more like a social worker’s report, full of compassion and understanding for all concerned.
Our sympathies are instinctively with Carrie (Moretz), an awkward, friendless teenager who is struggling with the knowledge that she has telekinetic powers. Her life is battered between the twin miseries of her Christian fanatic mother (Moore), who believes that she is possessed by demons and a bullying clique of teen girls at school, led by Chris (Doubleday.) The cunning twist is that we are siding with the monster and by the end both the villains have been, to some extent, vindicated.
Possibly Carrie’s main virtue as a horror tale is that it really makes use of blood. It is a substance that gets chucked about with some abandon in these types of films but here every drop - whether it is from childbirth, menstrual or from a slaughtered pig - is accounted for and is important. One of this version’s major additions is an unsettling opening scene in which her mother gives birth to Carrie. lt makes audiences squirm while efficiently establishing their fraught relationship.
Pierce’s film has fine performances and strong characterisations. Moore is the obvious stand out but Doubleday’s Chris is something more than the usual teen bitch. In fact she is presented as being possibly sociopathic. Moretz is a decent Carrie and around the right age, but there’s no way she could dislodge Sissy Spacek as the definitive performance. This is the true of the film as a whole: it does well but there is very little room for it to offer anything new. Despite claiming to be a new version of the book, its structure is that of the first film. The special effects are much improved but there isn’t a great call for them. In fact Carrie starts to perfect her powers too early and comes across as more X-Man rather than an awkward, gifted child.
Most crucially the film has no answer for De Palma’s classic final scene. It can’t top it, it can’t copy it so it just kind of leaves it. After Let Me In, the remake of Let The Right One In, Moretz seems to be specialising in thoroughbred horror remakes that fall down at the last hurdle.
