Meh. It's a great word. I use it to describe things i don't hate but things i don't give a feck about either. Meh is how i'd describe Carrie. It's an utterly redundant remake of Brian De Palma's electrifying 1976 adaption of Stephen King's titular novel. It adds nothing to the original version and is in many ways inferior to it.
Carrie White is an introverted young girl suffering that most evil of places - American high school. She was raised by her religious nutjob of a mother and knows nothing of the wider world. The story kicks off after her P.E. class. She's in the shower, and experiences her first period but because her mother has never taught her anything about her body, she think's she's dying. Her bloody indignity is laughed at, filmed and as is sadly the case these days, uploaded to the internet.
Some after Carrie experiences another first. Telekinetic powers. When she is sad or angry, things go flying ( to put it mildly). Soon after she experiences the joys and hate of school life until everything comes to a head at her high school dance and all hell breaks loose.
The climax of the 1976 film was dizzyingly inventive. De Palma used split screen to present the carnage from a multitude of angles. It was intoxicating viewing. Mind-blowing to a 70's audience. Bravura stuff. The 2013 version is dull as dishwater. Identikit teens being burned and electrocuted and crushed. If you can't tell them apart how are you supposed to care apart what's happening on-screen. Proper horror requires a gut reaction and this won't give you anything resembling that. It's not a bad film. The story before the climax isn't bad, it's just as i said earlier, meh.
Carrie is played by Chloe Moretz. A fine young actress who blew us away in 2010 as Hitgirl in Kick-Ass. She plays the part well but she's just too pretty too be believable as a high school pariah. Sissy Spacek looked the part in the original version and then some. Her religious freak of a mother is played by Julianne Moore. A favourite actress of mine. She is actually good in the part. Broad but not too manic. Her performance is actually one of the only improvements on the original. Piper Laurie played the part in 76 and was hammy as hell.
Watch it, don't watch it, you won't be missing anything if you don't see it. Not scary enough for horror fans, not bloody enough for gorehounds. But contains some good acting.
The very definition of meh.
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