Carrie (2013) (1 Viewer)

[Tino]

Btw, it's tracking to come in # 2 at the box-office this weekend with about $22 million, behind Gravity with about $30 million according to very early estimates.

 

[Michael Elliott]

Needless to say, spoilers for those who haven't seen it.

Tino, I agree with what Travis said. I think we view bullying today just differently than in 1976. We view it differently today than we did two years ago so I just think this here was the main focus of the film and I think it's a point a lot of people (not you per se) aren't seeing OR I'm simply reading too much into it. I just thought this was the best and most in-your-face anti-bullying thing I've ever seen. I really didn't expect that as I've made my opinions known in other threads that the trailer looked horrible. Again, I could be reading too much into it but it really did seem like the filmmakers wanted to send a message with this film and not just deliver a horror movie or some sort of Friday night "jump" film. You have the anti-bullying thing. You had the prank that led directly to one kid's death. There's even another scene I haven't mentioned with Carrie being rescued in the classroom by Tommy. The "look" the one teacher gives the other student (another issue in schools) and then him even somewhat bullying Carrie as well (another issues of teachers not stopping these things).

 

[Tino]

Early box office analysis from Deadline:

But the big bad story is how Sony’s Screen Gems’ and MGM’s completely unnecessary Carrie remake fell flat. It couldn’t scare up $20M even as the only horror movie opening before Halloween this October. Audiences gave it a ‘B-’ CinemaScore which won’t help word of mouth. Friday’s late shows in 3,157 theaters may lift the disappointing $7M gross but projections for its weekend range no better than $17M to $19M. Pic levitated $725K in Thursday late shows and Friday midnights and seemed promising based on matinee trends. Especially considering it was made for what the studios claim is $30M but also marketed with a full frills TV spend. Brian De Palma’s 1976 United Artists adaptation of the Stephen King classic novel has spawned a 1999 sequel and a 2002 made-for-TV movie and now this movie directed by Kimberly Peirce and starring Chloe Moretz and Julianne Moore. But it’s an R-rated teen drama masquerading as a horror film and didn’t satisfy either Saw fans wanting gore or Paranormal Activity addicts seeking supernatural thrills. Both those genre pics have dominated the pre-Halloween box office since 2004. But Paramount decided to delay PA5 from this month to October 2014. Carrie was no substitute.

 

[Michael Elliott]

Word of mouth.

 

[Tino]

Word of mouth.

Will be bad I think. A B- cinema score does not bode well for word of mouth.

 

[JohnMor]

The score at Rotten Tomatoes is 50%.

 

[Michael Elliott]

I don't mean to offend anyone but those cinemascore "scores" have always been a joke to me as I think they count up the biggest non-movie fans in the world, although perhaps that's the point. The "score" is meant for the average person who just goes to the movies for something to do on weekends. I saw something on CNN or one of those stations about how these reviews are gathered and the people they interviewed were just a joke to say the least.

As someone with several teenagers in their family, the word of mouth is that the film isn't scary (like PARANORMAL ACTIVITY) and it's not gory (like SAW) so I really don't think many posting those somewhat low scores are really expecting what they're getting.

Not to mention, any R-rated horror film is probably going to lose 1-3 million off its opening weekend box office simply because theaters that enforce the rules are going to have teens buying tickets for GRAVITY or other titles. This is totally off topic but I'd really like to read something about this in regards to how many ticket sales are lost these days for R-rated films.

 

[Tino]

I think the cinema scores are more of a snapshot rating and not necessarily a reliable barometer of a films potential....however if you check recent films with poor cinema scores, you will see that they'd didn't do to well. So they do serve a purpose. More so than rotten tomatoes which regularly has rotten ratings for box-office smashes. For instance Gravity got an A- and we all see how great that one is doing thanks to terrific word of mouth. Regardless, CARRIE only cost $30 million to make so making its money back shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Michael Elliott]

I don't know if this thing could have ever been a massive hit but it probably would have done better in March. The Conjuring and Insidious 2 already ate up some horror cash. I saw the trailer for the new PA movie and I really don't know if it would have opened up any better than Carrie this weekend.

 

[Tino]

I think audiences want gore and horror around Halloween and Carrie has none of those. I'm really surprised that other studios didn't jump at the chance to release a genre film with those elements since there's no PA film this year.

 

[Michael Elliott]

I know. I mean, what the heck is going on with HALLOWEEN 3? Did Warner (or New Line or whoever) not see that nothing was coming out and perhaps rush FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 into theaters? This certainly has to be the strangest year for when horror films have been released.

 

[Patrick Sun]

I think I wanted "Carrie" to be a little weirder than it was, so it just played a little too safe and flat for me, or that I'm just inured to a lot of "horror" elements nowadays.

I give it 2.5 stars, or a grade of C+.

 

[Brett_M]

A pointless remake. The 1976 version beats it on every level. Although a few parts worked for me (very few), the writers and director simply did a rehash with a happier ending. I am a huge fan of the original and although I like Julianne Moore and Chloe Moretz, they could not fill the shoes of the previous actresses (both Oscar nominated). Besides the fact that a sheltered, bullied teen could all of the sudden look like she stepped off a model runway with perfect hair and make-up, the cookie-cutter caricatures of Chris and Billy brought the film down, as did the "force hands" telekinesis and the killing of only her main tormentors. Even with his little screen time, Travolta was very memorable as Billy in the original. He was coerced sexually by Chris to play the trick on Carrie. Most of the characters had little development and it stems from the lazy script. Tommy and Sue were nowhere as developed as the characters played by Amy Irving and William Katt. The filmmakers did this: fill in plot point a, then plot point b, then let's get to the climax. Brian DePalma's film was a master class in plot, suspense and characterization; Kimberly Pierce, who made a devastating, haunting film of Boys Don't Cry, shows she does not have the chops to helm a film like this. It needed to be sharp, inventive and character-driven. What we got was far from this.

In the original, Carrie went from the highest high (dancing with Tommy, even getting a kiss) to the lowest low (the blood dump). Her mother's voice ringing her head ("They're all going to laugh at you!") and her POV seeing them laughing at her (whether they were or not doesn't matter; it's filmed to show the POV of a deranged person) -- she snaps and kills them all (guilty and innocent alike). In the remake, they laugh for a few moments and then she kills only those her bullied her.

If you're going to remake this film, go back to the source material and film it like an investigation, as the book is written. Give her telekinesis like the Dark Phonenix in X-Men 3 -- tear people apart. Destroy the whole town. Go for hard R not lame R for language and some stabbings. Change some shots, loop some dialog and edit with quick cuts and this is a PG-13 film.

In a word, lame. What a shame.

 

[Nelson Au]

I don't plan to see this, but I figured none of the original actors like John Travolta, Amy Irving, Betty Buckley, William Katt, or Nancy Allen had any cameos?

 

[Brett_M]

I don't plan to see this, but I figured none of the original actors like John Travolta, Amy Irving, Betty Buckley, William Katt, or Nancy Allen had any cameos?

I saw no cameos.

 

[Mike Huey]

SPOILERS.





Here was my #1 problem with this remake: Kimberly Peirce's misunderstanding of Carrie as a character. Here's what she wrote recently, in describing Carrie as a 'superhero origin story':

"You have to believe that Carrie is in the right and have to root for her to do that," said Peirce. "You don't want to feel that she's in any way going overboard or that she's doing anything to innocents if possible, it has to feel motivated. Because that's the kind of movie that we can go to and feel good about enjoying — I don't think we would've enjoyed it if it were organized any other way."


No. I'm sorry. "Carrie" is not a 'superhero origin story' nor is it something to 'enjoy'. "Carrie" is a tragedy. It's about a girl who goes from being a victim to an uncontrollable monster. The problem with the remake is that it treats the infamous Prom sequence as a simple calculated revenge situation, with Carrie being fully cognizant of what she's doing by only attacking those who bullied her. Most of the students survive and are standing outside of the gym as Carrie leaves.

In the novel (as well as in the 1976 film and the musical), Carrie simply snaps and decides to get 'every last one of them', guilty AND innocent. After incinerating the entire school (along with most of the senior class), Carrie wanders through the town causing massive destruction and killing more innocent people. "She would get all of them, every last one of them", as King wrote.

In a recent interview, Peirce said: "The trigger point, when Tommy goes down, that’s her king. When he falls she bends down. She’s the queen weeping over her king. Her powers first come out out of her control, as a manifestation of grief. It’s only after that that she gets to get angry and track down people who did this. So yes, she is reaching out to them because physically she’s going after the people who did this.(edit) You just have to be very careful that you're serving the audience and that the audience is inside story, and that when coming out of it they love Carrie"


So the trigger point is NOT supposed to be the blood dump? The trigger is Tommy's death? This all seems calculated to make Carrie simply a victim that you can feel good about rooting for while she's doing these terrible things-- instead of the uncontrollable monster that King transforms her into.

I don't know if it was studio pressure to make the subject more palatable (in light of school violence) or what, but this updated take on the material seems too 'politically correct' and is missing the edge and all-out tragedy that the novel and 1976 version depicted.

 

[Tino]

I just don't understand why the filmmakers chose to remake the DePalma film instead of going back to the source material. A completely fresh take on the story would have worked much better IMO. It worked great for True Grit by the Coen Bros. Missed opportunity

 

[TravisR]

I just don't understand why the filmmakers chose to remake the DePalma film instead of going back to the source material.

I just re-read the book over the past couple of days and DePalma's movie is very close to the book but the new one is even closer so the remake can't help but be very similar to the original movie. The remake dropped some of the original movie's changes & additions, made some of its own (mostly poor) additions & deletions and neither have the excerpts of the 'books' written on Carrie White or Carrie destroying most of the town that are in the novel but all things considered, I think the remake is slightly closer to the book.

EDIT: Where the movie does remake DePalma's movie is the scene where Carrie starts using her powers at the prom. That scene is fairly different in the book because Carrie runs out of the gym and then starts wrecking the prom from the outside. That kinda works in the book but in a movie, you want a visual where you can see her in the middle of the catastrophe using her powers rather than standing outside thinking really hard.

 

[mattCR]

I had mixed feelings, too, about her just selectively wiping them out. Franky, I had thought at one point they were going to have her go home and live through the night show up to school the next day and just stare them down to make sure no one turned her in.

That said, Carrie is not the vehicle of Kings I wish would get a remake... damn do I long for a Firestarter remake with better special effects.

 

[Michael Elliott]

So is the next version of Dracula supposed to leave out Dracula, vampires and blood sucking? People saying this Carrie is a "rip" of the original is just laughable because if anything it's a rip of the source novel, which the DePalma film was as well. I love the DePalma version as I've said but if we really want to start nitpicking it then it could be ripped to shreds. I'm not sure how well this new version would hold up but whatever impact the original had certainly wouldn't work on the mainstream today.

I know I've defended this film to high Heaven but some of the complaints everywhere are just downright mind-blowing.

Re: Trigger point

Yeah, blood drop isn't really a good reason to go mass crazy on everyone but then again, it's kinda silly for us to argue what a good reason for someone to go into a school and start killing off their classmates. I believe Nevada was a kid being bullied. Carrie was pushed throughout the movie and could have started killing them off at any point. I'm sure one more laughable moment wasn't enough for her to cross the edge so the death of someone who was kind to her is a better reason. Had the bucket not fallen I think there's a great chance that Carrie would have walked off the stage, out the front door, showered and came back to school the next day where I'm sure she would continue to get picked on.

The lack of new details in this version is just what's so shocking to me. I've laid out countless things that were different from the original film and Mike actually named yet another with the entire trigger point. We can go even further to a change involving Carrie's mother. In the first she was just an over-the-top religious freak and one that would get non-stop laughs from today's crowds. In this new version she's really someone in need of medical help/medication. She doesn't take it and this here is what makes Carrie who she is. The fact that Carrie could have been pretty and could have been popular but isn't because of how she's treated at home is something quite different. From Seitz review:

In this scenario it does not matter whether Carrie is conventionally "pretty" or "not pretty." Because Carrie is an abused child, she feels ugly; because she feels ugly, she radiates a sense of worthlessness.

In contrast to DePalma's version, Carrie's mom seems less a standard-issue, frothing-at-the-mouth "religious nut" movie character than a mentally ill single mom, eking out a living as a seamstress and dry cleaner. Moore's Margaret is a purely pitable figure who scratches and cuts her own flesh, and who cannot love herself, let alone a child. As far as Carrie knows, this is a normal home life.

I understand if people read these views and say they simply didn't work. I understand if people just don't like the alternate views that this female director brought to the film. However, to say that this is just a copy of the 1976 film is just downright nut to me. Both are so different but to me and both said such different things about all the characters I really don't see how anyone could call them a copy.

One of the most shocking reviews I read came from someone who was complaining about how "weak" this film was in regards to the opening shower sequence. The reviewer really laughed at the idea of this terrified girl getting her period yet managing to hold the towel around her. You know, I understand the point of this as its doubtful this would have happened but we really can't expect a 15-year-old actress to appear nude in a film like this. I know foreign films are okay with nudity from the under-15 crowd but can you imagine the outrage had that happened in something like this?