The remake for Carrie opens tomorrow, and we’ll have a review. I’m trying to go in with an open mind, but it’s hard: Carrie is a classic horror film and it’s blatantly being remade because MGM needs the money. There are plenty of reasonable arguments against remaking it. Some, however, aren’t so reasonable.
Chloe Moretz Is Too Pretty!
It doesn’t matter how pretty Carrie White is. She doesn’t fit in. She’s a misfit. She’s awkward and doesn’t talk much. She dresses funny and didja hear her mom went crazy when Ralph left her?
That’s pretty much the entire point of the original movie, that high school is a brutal, tribal thing where the Other is hated not because of reason but because it’s fun. Carrie White could be the Platonic ideal of female beauty and she’d still get victimized. That’s really why the movie works.
The CGI Will Ruin Everything!
I’m generally opposed to CGI in horror movies myself, but here I’m going to make an exception for two reasons. One, the original effects work in Carrie is the worst part of the film; Brian DePalma had a shoestring to make it work and while he does largely pull it off, he can’t avoid some pretty cheesy parts.
So, honestly, if the remake wants to feature more convincing effects, it’s kind of hard to argue that it shouldn’t. If the movie’s done right, the effects won’t be the centerpiece of the film anyway.
Everybody Knows The Twist Ending Already!
Yeah, because we all watch Carrie for the twist ending. There’s no other reason. At all.
Carrie endures nearly forty years after its release because of the acting. It’s easy to forget, but DePalma, Piper Laurie, and Sissy Spacek turned a cheap horror movie based on a well-selling but not highly esteemed book into a movie that got two Academy Award nominations for acting. Carrie is a horror movie because you don’t want the bucket to fall, not because Carrie White kills a bunch of people. If Chloe Moretz and Julianne Moore can nail it, the CGI isn’t going to matter.