Carrie (2013) review: A true reimagining or a revised edition?

Why remake Carrie? It’s a question which was doubtless on the minds of every film buff and critic upon hearing the news of the reboot of the Stephen King’s iconic debut novel of 1974. Carrie’s story has been embedded upon almost all aspects of the arts; the book itself; the legendary cult film (and abysmal sequel); even a Broadway musical, so it’s remarkable that no entrepreneurial Hollywood studio has opted to film the inevitable remake until now. But could anything hope to top the perverse, Oscar nominated brilliance of the 1976 original?

Surely the area where this remake truly excels in the casting of its leads, with Chloë Grace Moretz playing the ill fortuned Carrie White and Julianne Moore as her terrifyingly fundamentalist mother Margret. While Moretz, who honed her style playing strongly willed women (notably vigilante Hit Girl in Kick-Ass), lacks the pathetic desperation illustrated so beautifully and pitifully by Sissy Spacek in the original film, she plays the role with an emotional intelligence suggesting a great respect for both the 1976 movie and King’s book. Her performance as the naive girl seen for the first three quarters of the film couples brilliantly with the monstrous presence she becomes towards the conclusion, when she unleashes the kind of confidence and power which stole the show in Kick-Ass. It’s an excellent and intelligent change of direction for a very promising young actress. If Moretz takes an iconic character and makes it her own, Julianne Moore’s Margret is a little too similar to the version Piper Laure portrayed in 1976, but scenes of mental instability and self-harm create a slightly more pitiable and relatable character. It’s unfortunate that the rest of the cast don’t seem to have been chosen as carefully, with bullying ringleaders Chris and Billy in particular lacking the charismatic awfulness exhibited so despicably by Nancy Allen and John Travolta in the original film.

Carrie’s principle failure is that it sticks far too closely to the original film in its scripting. While the 1976 version added various famous sections to the source material, this remake includes them but makes few alterations of its own, a shame considering the various ways in which it could have been updated to the present day. In keeping much of the plot and dialogue the same, the film feels like a movie made in the 1970s transported to the present day, which dramatically damages its authenticity (communal showers in schools and teachers slapping students seem rather out of place in the modern setting). In not keeping up with the present, director Kimberly Peirce has missed an opportunity to update a classic story for a new generation, and consequently this remake feels rather wasted. In fact, aside from the setting, almost the only point in which it is obvious that the film was made in 2013 rather than 1976 is the notorious “black prom” sequence, where modern special effects are employed to gloriously gory effect. And while the film is perhaps more bloody and graphic than the original, it fails to create the atmosphere of tension that made the original so terrifying. Peirce’s direction lacks the ambiance that made Brian DePalma’s film so intense, relying solely on gore rather than mixing the contrasting techniques of hammer horror and building tension.

It’s still an enjoyable film, but 2013’s Carrie lacks the distinctive style that made the original so chillingly tense. Despite superb performances from the leads, the director is so in thrall of DePalma’s Carrie that little is added, and this is more of a revised edition than a reimagining.  

6/10