Synopsis: A young, abused and timid 17-year-old girl discovers she has telekinesis, and gets pushed to the limit on the night of her school’s prom by a humiliating prank. [ from IMDb]
Neoli’s Review: There’s a new Carrie movie coming out in the fall of 2013, a hopefully nice remake of Brian De Palma’s 1976 classic horror movie of the same title.
But don’t let the shiny new retelling overshadow the original; the original Carrie is jarring and irrevocably tragic unlike no other. Stephen King wrote the novel so expect horror piled upon horrors.
The titular character Carrie ( played by Sissy Spacek) is a gawky teenage girl in a dysfunctional family setup—weird bible- quoting mother, absent father. Carrie is, to modern kids, a complete loser, a definite bully material. But she’s not exactly defenseless— she can move things with her mind especially when she flares up. And that’s a dangerous combination: bottled up adolescent anger and untrained psychokinetic powers equals mayhem, which in the world of Stephen King is mayhem of the horrific kind.
The most famous scene is when Carrie is crowned Prom Queen ( through a rigged election by her arch nemesis girl schoolmate) and a bucketful of pig’s blood pours on top of her. Carrie, all blood-drenched and raging, won’t back down any longer and unleashes her power to its full destructive potential.
In this way Carrie became the single most potent depiction of teenage bullying and its consequences back in the late ’70s. Maybe it became a cautionary tale against bullying for our parents and our parents’ parents.
But now kids who haven’t seen Carrie are still at it, and there’s even a more sophisticated non-physical yet just as traumatic way to bully these days: cyber-bullying. Bullied kids commit suicide just because of a humiliating post, comment, or meme on Facebook, and it’s a serious matter worldwide.
I hope that new Carrie film jars the kids today real good.
Neoli’s Rating: 9/10
Click here to Own and Watch Carrie Now!
Directed by: Brian De Palma
Starring: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, John Travolta
Released: 1976
Beware of the spoilers in the trailer below!
