Carrie (2013)

Plot of Carrie: Carrie White is a timid teenager, often bullied by her female classmates, and also punished constantly by her religiously obsessed mother, who habitually locks her in a cupboard festooned in religious paraphernalia. Things come to a head when Carrie has her first period in the shower room and thinks that she is dying. The bullies throw tampons at her as she cries in distress. Later amid it all, one of the bullies, Sue, feels remorse and gets her boyfriend Tommy to invite Carrie to the high school prom. Carrie is suspicious but nevertheless makes her own dress, is picked up by Tommy in a stretch limo and taken to the event. Out in the country the bullies and their boyfriends have killed a pig and drained its blood into a container. By now we have discovered that Carrie has telekinesis so danger awaits.

Content: No sex or nudity, or drugs or drinking. Carrie’s mother is a religious nut who harms herself when she things she may be sinning, drawing blood from her own limbs. She also often shuts Carrie up in the cupboard to punish her for her apparent misdeeds. In the school Carrie destroys a mirror, mentally, and also does other strange things and when she learns that she has the capability of moving things with her mind she gets books out of the library so learns about her capabilities, and develops them. Things come to a head when pig’s blood is dumped on her at the prom, she reacts viciously and attacks the students indiscriminately. The bullies are then singled out for special attention, although Sue is spared, possibly because Carrie has detected that she is pregnant.

A View: The director had intended that this version be a more faithful representation of the book, but the producers were determined that it be a remake of the 1976 version, hence requiring that 40 minutes of her chosen film be removed and replaced by reshoots.  Actually you can see the editing, and until you learn what had happened it is a bit difficult to deal with. But in the end it has generally be considered to have been a good remake, not actually what the director wanted. But all being said, if we do not get too hung up with the machinations of the studio it is a pretty watchable film. So worth a view for nothing on a cold winter afternoon.

Fun Fact: In the two previous versions the actors playing Carrie have been in their twenties. This time she was played by a real teenager.