Brian De Palma’s 1976 film Carrie is a horror classic. Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie’s performances are iconic and the climactic scene where Carrie is finally pushed over the edge has haunted fans for years. And, like all great things, Hollywood has remade it.
The remake of Carrie, directed by Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry) and starring Chloe Grace Moretz as the title character and Julianne Moore as her religiously crazed mother, is not a bad film. In fact, it is actually quite good. Moretz gives a fine performance as an awkward girl that finds the confidence to stand up to her mother through a superpower. And Moore delivers a phenomenal performance that makes the film deeply unsettling. The problem, though, is that this remake never attempts to be anything more than a modern retelling of the original.
For those unfamiliar with the Carrie story, the film is about a socially awkward young girl brought up in the house of a religious zealot who gets brutally bullied at school after having her first period in the gym showers. As punishment to those that hurt her, the school forces the culprits to do some hard physical activity and when one quits the punishment, she is banned from the upcoming prom. As revenge, a plot is hatched to have Carrie crowned prom queen, and at the height of her happiness, completely embarrass her by dumping a bucket of pig’s blood on her. All the while, Carrie learns she has the power of telekinesis and uses it to rebel against her mother’s strict religious upbringing in an effort to try and be like everyone else. In the end, things don’t go so well for anyone.
Before its release, Peirce stated that she felt Stephen King’s novel, that both films are based on, was a timeless tale. I’d agree, the narrative is something that resonates now just as it did 30 years ago. And Peirce retells it quite well: she just doesn’t do anything new with the material.
Every iconic scene you remember from De Palma’s film is on display here, albeit in far more graphic detail. Carrie still gets pelted with tampons in the shower, her mother still thinks that “They’re all going to laugh at you,” she still becomes the prom queen only to have a bucket of pig’s blood poured onto her as she accepts her prize, and she still goes on a telekinetic rampage killing all those that she feels wronged her. The only difference is that these kids have Facebook, cell phones with cameras, and the ability to enhance the bullying even farther.
This idea that technology emboldens the bullying to become even more brutal could have a made quite an impact in this retelling; instead, Peirce only uses it as a minor plot point. Nothing changes, and outside of the visuals, nothing is enhanced. This remake of Carrie has little reason to really exist when you could just as easily watch De Palma’s original.
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