Unfortunately for Carrie, a remake of 1976’s film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same name (his first published novel), it fits into neither of these categories. Instead, it remains in the middle, stuck in a kind of horror movie purgatory; it is not thrilling, scary, well-acted, funny, or over-the-top. It’s just boring. And really, that’s the worst thing a horror movie can be.
The story is well-known and not at all original. Carrie White, a high-school student in Anytown, U.S.A., is bullied, seemingly by everyone. Her mother forces her into a locked closet to pray for her sins; her fellow students throw tampons at her and chant “Plug it up!” after she suffers the misfortune of having her first period in the school’s shower following gym class (yes, this really happened, and a video of the whole incident was posted to YouTube by one of the particularly bitchy students), and her gym teacher slaps her in the face because of her understandably dramatic reaction to this cruel behaviour.
Carrie finds solace in her telekinetic powers – she can lift her bed up all by herself! Feeling bad about the whole tampon throwing thing, The Pretty Student with a Heart asks her boyfriend, Captain America and Bro Extraordinaire, to ask Carrie to prom; he obliges. At prom, though, we all know what happens: a student, unhappy that she was banned from prom because of her role in the tampon throwing/YouTube incident, covers newly-minted Prom Queen Carrie with pig’s blood with the help of her Nothing But Trouble boyfriend.
Carrie loses her shit, substantially overreacts, burns down the school, and a bunch of kids end up dead. Carrie kills her mom and her house collapses on her. She dies. The End.
There is nothing memorable about the film, outside of a few classic lines taken directly from the 1976 original. The dialogue is bland, the character development is weak, and the actors provide nothing more than the bare minimum required to generate clichéd versions of characters we have seen a thousand times: The Social Outcast, The Bitchy Girl, The Emotional Jock and Jockette, The Crazy Mom, and The Unconventional Gym Teacher. It’s all very tired and lacks any semblance of inspiration.
My favourite scene from the movie is the second-to-last one. The Pretty Student with a Heart, having survived the worst prom night ever, speaks in front of a judge about Carrie’s role in the prom night massacre. She says that although Carrie had some kind of power, she was just like anyone else; she was pushed and “you can only push someone so far before they break.” Her speech acts as some sort of Extreme Public Service Announcement (EPSA) against bullying: if you bully people, you may push them too far, and you never know who you’re pushing too far. The person you are bullying may even have telekinetic powers, far more powerful than your tampon-throwing abilities.
This message – even if it manifests itself in a rather extreme manner – is perhaps fitting and admirable given the growing recognition within our society that bullying is shitty and kids, no matter how different or eccentric they may be, should be treated as equals.
Then again, my admiration for the movie quickly wore off when I realized that another underlying message of the film seems to be that you should listen to your mother, no matter how abusive and insane she is, no matter how many times she tells you that she should have sacrificed you to God when you were born, no matter how many times she tells you that you have sinned when you have done nothing wrong, and no matter how many times she locks you in a closet to pray. After all, it was Carrie’s mother who voiced concern when Carrie told her about prom: “They’re all going to laugh at you.” She couldn’t have been more right.