Carrie: Bleh + Julianne Moore = Decent

With Halloween right around the corner, many people are looking for a good scare. When haunted houses are too close for comfort, it is easy to turn to horror on the big screen. Hoping to draw from this October horror-movie craze, the newest remake of the scary-movie classic Carrie premiered on Friday after being pushed back from an early spring release. Based on the crowd in my local theater, I’d say the change paid off.

Carrie is, by all means, a familiar story. Almost everyone has seen the image of Sissy Spacek covered in pig’s blood at the prom. Most also know the relative important plot-points of the story: Carrie White is a social outcast in high school with an extremely religious mother. When Carrie gets her first period at school and doesn’t know what is happening, the other girls make fun of her. She becomes angry and subsequently discovers that she can make things move without touching them. While Carrie researches and hones her telekinetic powers, her mom, Margaret, gets crazier and more extremist. When Carrie gets asked to prom as an act of atonement from one girl who feels guilty for making fun of her, the queen bee at the school decides to play a cruel joke on Carrie. She covers Carrie in blood as she is accepting her crown for Prom Queen. The blood triggers an angry telekinetic attack from Carrie that ends in more blood, death, and some frantic prayers.

In the newest remake, directed by Kimberly Peirce, Carrie White (Chloë Grace Moretz) is socially awkward to an extreme—standing in the corner of the pool, not speaking full sentences, and averting all eye contact with other classmates. It doesn’t help that Carrie dresses like she is from the early 1900’s. It also doesn’t help that her mother Meredith (Julianne Moore) is the primary cause of her awkwardness by sheltering her from any ounce of normal human interaction and filling her time with claustrophobic prayer closets and religious creeds.

Meredith’s ideals are rooted in extremist Christianity and her whispered assertions are downright horrifying. Coupled with her bony frame, sunken eyes, and witch-like appearance, Meredith, not Carrie, is the scariest part of the film.

While Sissy Spacek received an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Carrie in the original film, I’m afraid the same will probably not be said for Moretz. Moore, however, could very well be considered, although probably not nominated. Her unhinged ideologies shine through dull eyes and frizzy hair; her self-harm tendencies (whether it be scratching herself or banging her head) hurt just as much as her religious hisses. And even though Carrie has the ultimate power, she still cowers to her mother’s threats of an eternity in hell.

Perhaps on of my biggest critiques of the film is the rendition of the high school environment. Carrie is by no means a super realistic plot, unless, of course, you believe in those intense powers of telekinesis. That being said, there needs to be a degree of reality in the world of the film in order for it to move the audience and be somewhat convincing. The high school was far too stereotypical, especially for audiences who know that those stereotypes do not actually exist. Athletic jocks do not part the hallways like Moses and the Red Sea; popular bitches do not rule all of the girls; teachers do not laugh at their students who are a little bit odd, at least not without severe repercussions. The portrayal was outdated, and with all of the updates given to the film, I would have liked to see an update in the high school environment.

It is definitely worth noting that Lawrence D. Cohen, screenwriter for the original film, was also a screenwriter for this new rendition. I wish that Carrie herself had more substantial lines, instead of her character being forced to rely on awkward facial expressions and strange grunts or breaths, but I could definitely tell that there was a large focus on Meredith’s lines, which were connected to many aspects of the action throughout the film. For instance, in one religious rant, she mentions stoning and in the final scene, stones start to fall from the ceiling of the house. Not every viewer will catch these little things, and at times it seemed like there might have been too much effort placed in religious connections, but they took the script from a boring surface level affair to a deeper intertwined story.

Carrie was an enjoyable experience until the final few scenes. The action became too over-the-top and unexplainable. I was left with many questions and that isn’t really the goal when seeing a scary movie. However, Julianne Moore shined and it was nice to see young Chloë Grace Moretz put herself in another blockbuster-esque film, even though the character didn’t lend itself to the levels complexity Moretz is capable of. I wonder now how many years it’ll be before another Carrie remake, and if the next version will up the ante or fall into the same pattern of stereotypes and familiarity. Only time will tell.