Carrie ** (2013, Chloë Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Ansel Elgort, Gabriella Wilde) – Movie Review

At sweet 16, Chloë Grace Moretz is attractive, confident and tough, a charismatic little spitfire. Carrie White, the character she’s playing in this new take on Brian De Palma’s classic Carrie is plain, shy, tormented and a desperate loser, the quintessential victim, a worm that’s going to turn on the mean girls who are bullying her, through her powers of telekinesis.

Moretz’s almost wilful miscasting is at the heart of the failure of Kimberly (Boys Don’t Cry) Peirce’s misguided, tepidly re-heated remake of the 1976 horror movie. Moretz is particularly at a loss in the early scenes when her school ‘friends’ pick on her. To be fair, she’s credible as a firecracker in film’s final reel when Carrie unleashes telekinetic terror at her senior prom. But for this to work properly, she’d have had to establish that she was, well, a bit like Sissy Spacek was in 1976.

The film noticeably perks up with the infamous crowning with a bucket of pig’s blood scene, as the special effects fireworks do their stuff. Even then, though, the effects are a bit duff and tame.

Julianne Moore enjoys herself in a nutty role as Carrie’s deeply religious mother. It’s not Moore’s best piece of acting – don’t expect it to add to her Oscar nominations – but it’s adequate and conscientious enough. It’s worth remembering that Piper Laurie was Oscar nominated for her fine work in this role and so was Spacek for hers back in the 70s.

Ansel Elgort gives a pleasant performance and he’s just right as the kind kid Tommy Ross. Though why did they pick a 6’ 4” actor to be the tiny Carrie’s prom king? He’s more than a foot taller than her! They just don’t look right together. Alex Russell overplays his role as bad boy Billy Nolan (John Travolta’s part in 1976) , the kid who comes up with the pig’s blood idea.

But Portia Doubleday is splendidly bitchy as meanest of the mean girls Chris Hargensen and Gabriella Wilde’s fine as Sue Snell, the least mean girl in the class, who selflessly gives her boyfriend Tommy up for prom night to atone for the girls’ first nasty trick on Carrie. Tommy tells Carrie she’s beautiful and she is – but she isn’t supposed to be ! If she is, the whole darned story won’t work.

Stephen King’s story Carrie feels lame and dated as a concept here. Apart from dumping the first movie’s brilliant original ending and replacing it with a feeble new one, this isn’t a re-imagining of Carrie, so much as Carrie with mobiles and You Tube. Somehow that feels forced in, giving the dated feel.

The film’s slick and competent enough and there’s plenty of blood, bucketloads in fact. It’s not boring at all but it’s never really scary, creepy, exciting or involving either.

The original 1976 Carrie has a 1999 sequel in The Rage: Carrie 2.

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© Derek Winnert 2013 Movie Review

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