Film review: Carrie remake a star-studded stinker

Carrie
Starring: Chloe Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Gabriella Wilde
Director: Kimberly Peirce
Category: IIB
Rating: 2/5

The problem with remaking a horror classic such as Brian De Palma's Carrie (1976) is that everyone knows the ending. So most of the time viewing this new version directed by Kimberly Peirce ( Boys Don't Cry) is spent watching the clock in anticipation of the famous Grand Guignol prom scene. When that time comes, it's reasonably well executed in a schlocky, B-movie way. But the journey to that cathartic moment is a bore made palatable only by performances from Julianne Moore as Margaret, Carrie's abusive mother, and Chloe Grace Moretz as Carrie.

In 2011, Stephen King, who wrote the 1974 novel on which both films are based, asked why the film was being remade when the original was so good. He raised a good question. The cynical answer is that certain parties thought they could cash in on the Carrie name with a younger generation of viewers who had heard of, but not actually seen, the original movie.

Scriptwriter Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa claimed his adaptation was going to be truer to King's book than De Palma's version, but that idea seems to have been lost. The new version is almost a scene-by-scene reconstruction of the original film (the original screenwriter Lawrence D. Cohen gets the lead writing credit). So the real question is, why bother to see it?

De Palma's original is a genre movie to be sure, but, like the works of Italian horror maestro Dario Argento, its psychology is so powerful that it ends up having something interesting to say. Essentially, it's a coming of age story about the growing pains of changing from a girl into woman, as exemplified in the well-known scene in which Carrie is humiliated in the shower during her first period.

Peirce's take is disappointing in this regard, and her clumsy direction turns the story into a run-of-the-mill tale about nasty schoolyard bullies and nut-job religious fanatics, which only manages to namecheck the deeper psychological aspects.