Carrie Year: 2002 Director: David Carson Written by: Bryan Fuller Threat: Religious Fanatic Weapon of Choice: Telekinesis Based upon: novel - Carrie - Stephen King IMDb page:

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Rish Outfield's reviews
Why remake a great movie? I don't really know, to be honest. I totally see remaking a bad one, or one based on a book where the previous version wasn't faithful to it. Okay, so 2002's Carrie TV movie is more faithful to King's first novel than De Palma's classic 1976 version. But did it need to be made? And do you need to see it? Brought to you by NBC and a couple of Star Trek creators, I didn't exactly look forward to this version of the story, but I drew the short straw, and it was up to me to watch it and review it for you.
Carrie tells the story of Carrie White, a backward and unpopular high school student lorded over (pun intended) by her fanatically religious mother and tormented by her hateful classmates. Both gifted and cursed with a growing telekenetic ability, Carrie finds the strength to stand up to her mother and sees a glimpse of happiness at her Senior Prom, before it is all snatched away from her by the world's cruelest prank.
God, I hate the 21st Century. Crappy fashions, music, technology, and lots of diversity for diversity's sake (hey everybody, look how colourful our cast is!) . . . is there no one with a soul in today's day and age? I just realized that the original Carrie was made an entire generation ago, so maybe somebody thought today's youths couldn't relate to a Carrie that didn't do her research on the Internet.
Well, that makes it all better then.
Newcomer Angela Bettis (a shrinking, gangly, hollow-eyed girl) plays the title character, with Patricia Clarkson as her raving mother, superbabe Rena Sofer as the one teacher who reaches out to the girl, and David Keith as a cop investigating the whole thing. The entire film is played in flashbacks, with people telling the police their story--a device that works alright, except you know exactly who's gonna survive in the end.
I have to admit that this version started really well. They were able to incorporate the falling rocks scene from the book in a great way. The entire film is done on a much, much bigger scale than the original, especially the destruction caused at the end (which was probably even more extensive than that in the book). As the Prom sequence began, I started to wonder if the film was going to be three hours long instead of the usual two. And it was. Virtually all the extended scenes helped flesh out the film's supporting roles, and I'm a big fan of getting to see more of the story, but just like the 1996 version of The Shining, though I enjoyed the scenes that were unique to this version, the scenes that appear in both are far superior in the original. Does that make sense?
Stephen King's book is not exactly a horror novel as much as it is a tragic tale of abuse and lost potential. The 1976 version capitalised on the Horror aspects, whereas this version focuses a lot more on dramatic elements and a drawn-out depiction of women's inhumanity to women. I had no idea girls were this bad. Moments in the film are absolutely HEARTBREAKING, just like the other version. Poor Carrie White is so pitiful, so scared and sad that you can't help but hate this world for what it does to her. The actress who plays the villianous Chris Hargesen is so unbelievably hot that it makes her all-consuming evil all the greater.
This version was weakened by commercials, as well as the godless use of upcoming scenes as commercial bumpers (the first person to email me and passionately agree wins a prize). It featured a really gross menstruation scene . . . which leads me to ask, is there any other kind? The special effects went from really good to laughable (here's a lesson I hope you learned long ago: CG isn't always our friend, kids). In the story's most famous sequence, they splatter the girl with about eleven hundred gallons of pig's blood, which was just overkill, and pushed credibility right out the window.
Worst of all, they had the temerity to dare tack a happy ending on the story. Much like the musical number with the dancing harlequins and bottle rockets at the end of Schindler's List, this doesn't fit with the rest of the film. In summation, your honour, while parts were entertaining, on a whole the TV movie pales in comparison to the 1976 version.
Note: As far as I know, this is only one of two Stephen King films to date that have been made twice (both originally theatrically and then on television). The results have been mixed, with the TV adaptations coming across as much, much weaker. At this point, the only film I would really like to see remade would be The Running Man, but due to the way the book ends, I'm afraid that would be impossible.
Note 2: My prom was sort of like Carrie White's, except it involved diarreah instead of pig's blood.
Posted: December 1, 2002

Total Skulls: 15

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?