Carrie (2013) – Review

The undisputed prom queen of the “good for her” subgenre of horror will always be be the bloodstained image of Stephen King’s Carrie White – the bullied, sheltered schoolgirl who finally erupts like a wide-eyed neutron bomb when she discovers she has the powers of telekinesis. But while it’s always been a story of the ages that takes in budding womanhood, bullying, religious mania and an upsetting misuse of sanitary products, it’s an undeniable fact that Brian De Palma’s 1976 adaptation is the definitive version.
That hasn’t stopped Hollywood from trying to top it, however, with a pointless sequel surfacing in 1999 and an even more unnecessary television remake popping up in 2002, only to vanish without a trace.
Well, in 2013, Kimberly (Boys Don’t Cry) Pierce assembled an impressive cast to give it one more crack despite the fact that a lot of modern remakes only succeed in draining the very personality out of genre classics that made them stand out in the first place. Can yet another version “carrie” on in the face of such an unbeatable legacy?

Living under the oppressive cloud of a mother whose devout and fanatical faith masks the fact that she’s utterly insane, lowly Carrie White is easy prey for the other girls at her high school. However, the bullying kicks into upsetting high gear when Carrie gets her first period while showering after gym class and her hysterical reaction to something that should be so normal causes her entire class to cruelly torment her as she writhes in mortal terror on the tile floor.
Stunned that a girl her age would have absolutely no idea about what was actually happening, gym teacher Rita Desjardin lays down the law on the rest of the class, but when bitchy ringleader Chris Hargensen rebels, she is unceremoniously suspended from from the upcoming prom while Chris’ former partner in crime, Sue Snell genuinely attempts to atone for the spiteful deed.
So far, so Mean Girls, but what no one realises, not the protective Desjardin, not the hateful Chris, not the well meaning Sue and certainly not the tyrannical Margret White, is that Carrie has a burgeoning talent bubbling under the skin – Carrie has the ability to move things with her mind.
So far, her supernatural ability has only been limited to the occasion popping lightbulb whenever she gets too emotional, but as Chris and Sue carry out their various plot to both harm and help Carrie, the stage is set for an explosive prom that will see disaster strike.
Enticed to the school dance with the promise of dating local hunk and Sue’s boyfriend, Tommy, Sue truly helps to give the downtrodden Carrie the night of her life, but a vicious counter-prank planned by her nemesis will cause the poor girl to have a meltdown equal in destruction to freaking Chernobyl.

Because De Palma’s Carrie is essentially one of the most distinctive, celebrated and best horror films of the decade, any version that attempts to follow in its wake is doomed from the get go by being rendered unnecessary virtually but the crime if simply existing. The original not only rendered Stephen King’s first book perfectly with an iconic cast and visuals that just can’t be topped, but it’s considered one of the best horrors of the decade that means it easily rubs shoulders with the likes of The Exorcist, The Omen and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
This sadly also remains true of Kimberly Pierce’s version, which actually is a huge shame, because even though it can’t hope to match the original’s frenzied style and look, it remains one of the better examples of the horror remake obsession that Hollywood was awash with at the time. While this new version doesn’t fiddle with the story the way, say, The Texas Chain Saw remake did, Pierce attacks the piece with a sense of clarity, modernizing a bit here, tweaking a plot point there and focusing mainly on nailing the casting which proves to be the movie’s best feature.
While Kiss-Ass’ Cholë Grace Moretz doesn’t quite have the genuinely fragile, doe-like nature of a Sissy Spacek, she does manage to balance the anxious timidity and mounting ferocity that comes with the territory, she can mewl the word “mama” with the necessary about of fear and she certainly has form murdering her way through an entire room thanks to her role as Hit-Girl. Elsewhere Gabrielle Wilde is suitably nice as the do-gooding Sue Snell, Portia Doubleday hones her “piece of shit” skills as the ruthless Chris and Ansel Elgort is on nice guy duties as Tommy and again, while none can hope to equal the likes of Amy Irving, Nancy Allen and William Katt, they fill their roles proficiently enough.

However, it’s with the adult casting that Carrie ’13 gets really interesting with the rather inspired choices of Judy Greer and Julianne Moore as the two opposing women in Carrie White’s life. While Greer’s shift into more mumsier roles (in comparison to what she plays in Archer, at least) puts her in great stead as the crusading gym teacher, if anyone had a chance at matching Piper Laurie as the frankly terrifying Margret White (they don’t) its Moore. Yes, Laurie will always reign supreme as a King villain who could even give Kathy Bates’ Annie Wilkes a run in the crazy stakes, but still does fine work as the self-harming, bible spouting, knife waving matriarch of the White family and it’s a shame she isn’t given more chance to interact with the other characters.
With such savvy casting, all that’s left to appraise is the 2013 version of possibly one of the most memorable prom scenes in cinema history, and while a few changes has been made to Carrie’s final act rampage (this Carrie is a teensy bit more merciful than past incarnations with way more survivors left over than usual), the violent acts she inflicts on those who have done her harm are sufficiently brutal to make up for the lack of split screen, bizarre lighting and other tricks that De Palma used back in the day. With Moretz doing her best Scarlett Witch impression, the effects are far less hokey (she knocks an entire room off their feet with a concussive mental blast that would rock an elephant), but Peirce doesn’t lose sight of that old De Palma pizzazz as the iconic spill of pig’s blood is replayed at least three times and her vicious vanquishing of Hargensen with a crushed car and a face full of windshield glass proves that this version is fully ready to get its hands dirty.

If you have to watch a version of Carrie, then it should always be the 1976 version, but if you have a serious aversion to wide-ass collars, voluminous perms and a offensively young John Travolta, then the 2013 incarnation is nowhere as bad as you may have heard – it just suffers from the fact that it struggles to justify its existence despite containing some legitimately powerful talents. Much like poor Carrie herself.

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