541: Carrie

[00:00:01] Let's get to the Carrie remake from 2013. It's directed by Kimberly Pierce, stars Chloe Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Gabriella Wilde, Judy Greer.

[00:00:18] And the synopsis is, a shy girl outcast by her peers and sheltered by her religious mother unleashes telekinetic terror on her small town after being pushed too far at her senior prom.

[00:00:34] Well, this was Stephen King's first novel, which is pretty crazy to think about in terms of the legacy of it.

[00:00:43] I only got around to seeing it about a year or two ago. I had seen the original way back when, but did not remember much about it.

[00:00:54] And I decided to review this one instead of that one in some ways because I'm just tired of hearing the same few movies talked about or the classics, quote unquote.

[00:01:04] I want to, for better or for worse, I want to try and talk about movies for my own enjoyment and hopefully for yours as well that just haven't been as covered.

[00:01:16] This was my second time watching it. I just rewatched it the other day.

[00:01:21] I like this one. Maybe it's becoming a trend with me on these recent episodes, but I seem to like this movie more than a lot of people.

[00:01:33] It's definitely got some issues that bring it down some, but as a Stephen King adaptation, as a horror coming of age story, I think it's pretty good.

[00:01:47] Chloe Grace Moretz has grown on me a lot over the years.

[00:01:52] When she first started out and she was in Kick-Ass, wasn't really a fan, still am not of those early roles, but this is easily one of her best in Carrie.

[00:02:04] And she's grown as an actress to me, both in her acting range, as well as the projects that she picks.

[00:02:15] And Carrie, the character, you know, the novel is very much about, at least from what I have gathered, of this ostracized person who is misunderstood.

[00:02:28] It's a very classic tale in that way.

[00:02:32] As well as the hell of high school and if you're unlucky enough to be one of the bullied ones, as Carrie was, who was the most bullied out of anyone.

[00:02:42] And her trying to understand herself with her mother being no help at all, considering she didn't even want to tell Carrie about having a period when she was a teenager.

[00:02:54] So there's that iconic scene in the beginning when she's in the shower at school.

[00:02:58] She starts having her period suddenly and she thinks she's dying and all the girls laugh at her and terrorize her.

[00:03:06] But over the course of the movie, she comes into herself as a woman, as well as, in this case, developing supernatural abilities to take revenge on all the people who wronged her, who chose to not help her in times of need to try and understand her.

[00:03:23] So they were the first to go, which is basically everyone at the school.

[00:03:28] Along with that, I think everything with the mom and that trauma of growing up with a overbearing, abusive, very Christian mother who, in this movie at least, hates herself, I think.

[00:03:44] And so she can't really learn to care or truly love Carrie either.

[00:03:49] Like it's honestly, in terms of the direction too, but it's hard to watch sometimes.

[00:03:54] It's so cruel in how Carrie is treated.

[00:03:58] And what's refreshing about this adaptation, considering it's directed by a woman, is that not in a bad way, very much in a true-to-life way,

[00:04:10] the movie feels in how it presents pain and trauma and also the bullying of Carrie to be very female-oriented.

[00:04:22] And I'm not saying I understand female trauma.

[00:04:24] I'm just saying that in terms of if this were a male character, I know that the bullying and how they were treated in high school would be entirely different.

[00:04:33] It feels so distant from me that I could only assume.

[00:04:38] If I'm wrong, let me know.

[00:04:40] I'm not trying to project anything, but that's just what I gathered from both the book, which is great, and both movies.

[00:04:49] One minor issue I had in terms of the writing is the female bully, Chris.

[00:04:56] The writing for her is a little inconsistent because it'll try and at times show her as a possible victim of this family who basically lets her run wild,

[00:05:08] who is under this umbrella of power and wealth, so she's uncontrolled and she's never known any better.

[00:05:16] But then cut to when she's bullying Carrie, it feels like she's just pure evil.

[00:05:24] There's no humanity to her at all, so that realism goes back and forth inconsistently.

[00:05:32] It doesn't hurt the movie that much, but that's something I noticed on this rewatch.

[00:05:39] I do like a lot the blonde friend of Chris who, right from the get-go, realizes that all this bullying is not okay.

[00:05:50] She tries to distance herself from Chris and get on Carrie's side,

[00:05:55] but in a lot of ways Carrie is so far gone that she can't even really trust her or anyone for that matter.

[00:06:04] There are at times maybe a few too many mentions of religion in terms of it being heavy-handed with the commentary.

[00:06:12] Like, the arguments that Carrie and her mother have towards the beginning don't really need it to go that far.

[00:06:19] It's just them spouting sermons at each other, and I know that there is a religious subtext to all this.

[00:06:28] There's one thing that I've heard mentioned about this movie that seems so off-color and tone-deaf

[00:06:38] in that some people that I've read have hated on the movie because they say

[00:06:44] Chloe Grace Moretz is too, quote-unquote, pretty to be Carrie, to be bullied.

[00:06:51] And every time I hear something like that, I'm like, okay, obviously those people who are saying that have never been bullied.

[00:07:00] And or they've only been exposed to one certain kind of bullying.

[00:07:06] It doesn't matter if you're deemed attractive or unattractive.

[00:07:10] It could be anything.

[00:07:11] That's what's so horrible about bullying.

[00:07:14] So, that claim that she is too pretty is completely absurd.

[00:07:20] And then also, that seems to maybe indirectly pointing fingers at Sissy Spacek in the original is,

[00:07:28] okay, so is she unattractive enough to play Carrie?

[00:07:32] Is that what you're saying?

[00:07:33] Is that better?

[00:07:35] Which I don't like to get involved in all these stupid online conversations anyways,

[00:07:39] but that was one that I saw right off the bat when I was reading up on this movie and how people felt about it.

[00:07:48] Now, the ending is great.

[00:07:52] The revenge of Carrie when she gets the pig's blood poured on her.

[00:07:57] And that's a great visual.

[00:07:59] Not that it happened to her, but the blood dripping down her face, the bloody hair.

[00:08:04] And then when the blood starts kind of evaporating or floating off of her skin and all hell breaks loose.

[00:08:13] There's people getting crushed, electrocuted, burned.

[00:08:19] The demise of Chris and her boyfriend is very satisfying.

[00:08:25] So, that whole section, if you want to see a movie end it right and really bring all of those ideas of revenge to the surface,

[00:08:34] this one does it really well.

[00:08:37] The effects are really good.

[00:08:40] It's shot well.

[00:08:41] I like the slightly red-tinted hair of Carrie through most of the movie.

[00:08:48] The killing of the mom at the end when she's pretty much crucified against the wall with knives.

[00:08:58] That's quite a striking image.

[00:09:00] And the destruction of the house and the blonde girl coming back to try and help Carrie.

[00:09:07] Going back to the religious stuff.

[00:09:11] It is more so apparent at the end because in a single night she's reborn in a way as Carrie.

[00:09:19] You know, when she gets revenge.

[00:09:20] She kills her own mother and then she dies.

[00:09:25] And not only that, but her gravesite is desecrated with the words something like Carrie is in hell or Carrie go to hell.

[00:09:37] So, she did really go from beginning to end in that short time span, but interestingly so.

[00:09:43] That was a very well done arc in such a short time.

[00:09:49] And with that death, it almost feels like at times the movie like a comic book film.

[00:09:55] Like an origin story.

[00:09:57] Like a dark anti-hero or something being resurrected or born.

[00:10:04] Overall, I think it's a underrated film.

[00:10:07] I can't wait to see Mike Flanagan's adaptation of Carrie in the TV show that he's doing right now.

[00:10:14] I hope Mike Flanagan just keeps making Stephen King movies and shows.

[00:10:19] He just has the perfect knack to adapt them the right way more often than not.

[00:10:28] That one is a heavy three and a half out of five.