Carrie (2013) Review

Movie: Carrie (2013)
By: Maniac E
Date: November 5, 2013

Know her name. Fear her power.

When I heard about this remake I just thought to myself "why". Why can't we just leave things alone. What has been become of this new remake? Is it still something you could enjoy even after 37 years since the original has been released? Let's find out.

Carrie White (Chloe Grace Moretz) is shy and odd, attempting to stay out of the spotlight whenever possible. At school, she has no friends and interacts with teachers and students as little as possible. Her mother Margaret (Julianne Moore) is a fanatical, abusively castigating woman, mentally traumatized from her own unhealthily zealous upbringing. When the misinformed Carrie has her first period in Ms. Desjardin's (Judy Greer) P.E. class, she thinks she's dying and is mercilessly ostracized by her classmates. Tormentor Sue Snell (Gabriella Wilde) recognizes her cruelty and convinces her boyfriend Tommy Ross (Ansel Elgort) to take Carrie to the prom as atonement. But bullying ringleader Chris Hargensen (Portia Doubleday) and her violent lover Billy Nolan (Alex Russell) decide to lash out at Carrie again, this time blaming her for their banishment from prom. And things start to get chillingly weird.

Basically we got an exact copy of the 1976 movie but of course with more things of this time. Don't get me wrong some of the subtle changes are good but with the original being so iconic and groundbreaking you can help it but feel a bit been there done that. They could have done a bit more with the script and the way the movie would unfold. Of course, remakes are never really okay or doing justice to the original counter parts. But with this one you can see it as a good thing or a wrong thing, this one walks in a grey area. This remake will and can't ever be considered really groundbreaking everything done is purely a recap of things that were already there.

For me personally Carrie was always about the teasing and running one person into the ground thing which I felt was way deeper in the original. It is hard to imagine that Moretz is a girl that would be bullied and left out of a social group. She tries to pull off the best performance she could with it but I have seen her act better. We wanted to know about the ending scene, well they tweaked it a bit making it all a bit more bloody CGI wise and added an extra bit of Carrie but falls a bit short. All in all the way this movie has been set up for is just rehash of everything and in my opinion makes it feel redundant.

Carrie is a decent remake: less theatrical, more modern (for better or worse) occasionally smart, but ultimately generic. Nevertheless I believe it is worth looking at, if only once. It is one of those movies you should be the judge yourself, I know for sure hardcore Carrie fans can find lights in this dark tunnel. I enjoyed the movie for what it was a remake but still think it is a complete waste of time to remake a movie and basically do nothing new with it. Let's just hope this Carrie pushes the old Carrie to a younger public.