“Carrie” was the first Stephen King novel ever published, and it’s the one people keep coming back to. Filmmakers are having the hardest times getting “The Dark Tower” made into a movie or a TV show or getting remakes of “The Stand” and “It” off the ground, and it’s a reminder of how development hell is still alive and well in Hollywood. “Carrie,” however, has been adapted into the horror classic Brian De Palma directed in 1976, turned into a musical that became famous for how long it didn’t run on Broadway, generated a sequel called “The Rage: Carrie 2” which disappeared not long after it had been released, and was later remade into a TV movie whose only saving graces were Angela Bettis as Carrie White and Patricia Clarkson as Margaret White. Now we have yet another remake of “Carrie” which would seem unnecessary were not for the filmmaker who directed it, Kimberly Peirce. She gave us the brilliant and emotionally devastating “Boys Don’t Cry” which dealt with a human being who was cruelly cast out of regular society, so that makes this particular horror remake rather intriguing.
Why do people keep coming back to this particular King novel after all these years? Well, with its themes of bullying, isolation and the pain of adolescence, “Carrie” proves to be as timely now as it was when the novel came out in the 1970’s. The story remains the same, but the tools of humiliation and anger have been slightly updated. Carrie White (Chloë Grace Moretz) still has her first period, but this time it is captured on an iPhone and posted on the internet with gleeful malice and a complete lack of sympathy. Granted, Carrie probably doesn’t have a Facebook page as her mother Margaret (Julianne Moore) has spent a lot of time homeschooling her daughter before being forced to send her to high school, and she remains as strictly religious as ever; locking her poor daughter into a closet to pray to a bleeding Jesus on a cross.
The main fault with this version of “Carrie” is that it follows De Palma’s film a little too closely. For those who have seen the 1976 movie, not too much has changed so this may not seem as scary as before. At the same time, I found myself admiring what Peirce was able to convey with the characters (especially the female ones). While certain characters end up coming off as a bit too generic, we get to see the different dimensions that make them more human than the average character we constantly get exposed to in horror movies.
Moretz successfully makes the character of Carrie White her own, and you never feel the shadow of Sissy Spacek’s performance hovering over her. She is able to bring more of Carrie’s rage that we saw in King’s book, and we see her as a powder keg just waiting to explode. We all know her as Hit Girl from the “Kick Ass” movies, and we know that it’s only a matter of time before she starts kicking some serious ass at the prom. Even though Moretz doesn’t quite match the description King made of Carrie in the book (she’s one of those actresses you can’t really make look ugly), it’s clear from her performance that she understands this horribly shy and alienated teenager inside and out. While this Carrie isn’t ugly by a long shot, she is made to feel ugly by everyone around her, and you can see her discomfort with her own body weighing heavily on her psyche.
Julianne Moore continues to put in one great performance after another, and her work here as Margaret White is very effective. Whereas Piper Laurie played Margaret as a deranged religious zealot whose devotion to Jesus was unwavering, Moore instead makes the character surprisingly empathetic. Margaret is still deranged, but Moore shows her to be a loving mother who does care ever so deeply about her daughter even if her love comes with a lot of mental anguish. Moore even shows Margaret engaging in self-mutilation which is painful to watch and adds another layer to this character that wasn’t in the book.
Actually for me one of the most fascinating characters in “Carrie” is Chris Hargensen who is played here by Portia Doubleday. Chris hates Carrie with a passion and looks forward to humiliating her with a vengeance on prom night, but I found myself really getting caught up in how the character goes from being just spoiled girl to someone who slowly gravitates towards the dark side. Chis initially shows some hesitation when her never do well boyfriend Billy Nolan (Alex Russell) kills the pig whose blood they will use to dump on Carrie, but once she starts cutting the dead pig’s throat, I found the look on her face to be one of the movie’s most horrifying moments. As she gets deeper into criminal activity, we see Chris starting to get both aroused and scared by it, and she doesn’t realize until it’s too late that there’s no turning back.
I was also glad to see Judy Greer playing PE teacher Miss Desjardin, and the role allows her to balance out her sweet side with a rougher exterior as she gets constantly exasperated by her students who show little signs of being the least bit sympathetic towards Carrie. I also have to give Ansel Elgort some credit as he makes Tommy Ross’ transition from not wanting to take Carrie to the prom to making sure the two of them have the best time possible very convincing. Then there’s the lovely Gabriella Wilde who plays Sue Snell, the popular girl who encourages Tommy to take Carrie to the prom. She’s very good in the role and shows us the inner turmoil going on as she sees her goodwill get dumped on literally.
Look, there’s no way that Peirce could have topped De Palma’s “Carrie,” and this adaptation suffers a bit from following that film a little too closely. Having read the book, it would have been interesting to see it done as kind of a documentary as the book is told from various points of view where the townspeople share their memories of what happened on the night of the prom. Still, it’s Peirce’s approach to the characters that made her version of “Carrie” worth watching for me.
Was a remake of “Carrie” really necessary? Not really, but it happened anyway and not for the first time. Having Peirce behind the camera for this one gives this remake a reason for being, and she is blessed with a cast who did not let their memories of De Palma’s horror classic get in the way of their acting. If anyone else was directing this version, I’m not sure I would have bothered watching it. Peirce remains a filmmaker who understands how cruelly we can alienate someone for being different, but she never gets caught up in making this a message movie. She is determined to have us rooting for Carrie even as she lays waste to a town and its inhabitants who have been relentlessly cruel to her. That’s why we go to the movies anyway, to engage in our fantasies.
Now let’s think about adapting some Stephen King novels that haven’t already been made into movies or miniseries…
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