Review: Carrie (2013)

Being a fan of actress Chloe Grace Moretz, I went into this one really wanting to like it, particularly with regards to her performance. Unfortunately, the newest version of Carrie suffers from many failings, from the half-hearted directing of its actors to the poorly done recycling of scenes from the original. In the end, the new Carrie works well as a date movie for teenagers but brings none of the fear or gravity that the original possessed.

If you don’t know the story of Carrie, it follows the tale of teenage girl and her crazy-as-hell religious mother. The titular character has been raised in a strictly God-fearing house. Worse yet, she’s told none of the basic facts of life. This leads to more than one complication at school and marks her as the penultimate outcast. But when things start to look hopeless for her, Carrie discovers that she happens to have telekinetic powers.

As she learns more about her abilities, she takes control at home. The religious mom naturally assumes that Carrie’s powers come from the devil. In the meanwhile, a girl at school wants to make amends for something bad that she did to Carrie so she convinces her boyfriend to take the poor girl to the prom. When things look like they’re going well for Carrie, another mean girl dumps a bucket of blood on her and then all sorts of telekinetic death starts happening.

I will say that I was impressed with the level of brutality that some of the death scenes possessed. The movie came across with a bit more punch than the original version, at least in that regard. I also liked that there was more revolving around Carrie learning her telekinetic abilities and assuming power at home.

Unfortunately, these few good things don’t balance out the failures. The actors seemed as if they were confused about what emotions they were supposed to be portraying much of the time, a flaw I would place on the shoulders of the director. There’s a habit of comparing it to the original as well, particularly where it comes to the excellent job that Sissy Spacek did. I tried to get over that, but even wearing blinders didn’t help to improve the presence of the characters on screen.

Rotten Tomatoes has this one rated at a dismal 49/48%, which is about where I would put it. Whether you’ve seen the original or not, the newest incarnation of Carrie is a movie that can be safely ignored without missing out on anything. Which is unfortunate, because I really did want to like it. Oh well, maybe in another 10 years when someone decides to do it again.

Photo Credits -           

Carrie 2013 courtesy of ign.com