While the remake of Brian De Palmer's classic "Carrie" doesn't hold a candle to the original in terms of its direction and overall style it is a worthy update of Stephen King's story for a new audience. There have been countless remakes of classic horror films and few are this decent, a lot of that is down to the performances of Julianne Moore as Carrie's mother and Chloe Grace Moretz as the lead.
Now, Mortez is no Sissy Spacek, not by a long shot, Spacek's Carrie right from the moment we meet her is a severely disturbed and troubled young woman, this is even shown in her physical appearance, Spacek's peering and sunken eyes, stare out from behind her matted dirty red hair with a cold , almost alien-like distance between her and the world around her. She is an outsider trying to appear normal.
Moretz's Carrie is shown to be the opposite, she's an ordinary girl in extraordinary circumstances. Perhaps this was an intentional decision or more likely, it's impossible to replicate what Sissy Spacek did with the role. But Chloe Grace Moretz gives a strong performance nevertheless. Her quietness draws you to her but you're never afraid of her and that really is the most major difference between the two.
Julianne Moore's performance as Carrie's crazy religious fanatic of a mother is almost identical to Piper Laurie's from the original and that's not a criticism at all, in fact it's the highest compliment i could give her.
The film covers the same themes of sexual repression, the effect of child abuse on young women, and female rage and empowerment but it does so slightly differently than the original. In the climax in De Palmer's Carrie, its made explicitly clear we are not witnessing an act of justified vengeance. Carrie though a sympathetic character by this point has become an unfeeling and merciless monster. Or perhaps she was that all along and all it took was a little bullying and pigs blood to push her over the edge, that's the question that's posed for the audience to answer.
In the remake Carrie's brutality in the climax is an act of impulsive vengeance, which begins as retribution and ends in regret . The final sequence is more drawn out and of course more cinematic due to its use of CGI and blockbuster Hollywood effects. Still, Chloe Grace Moretz really sells the ending.
Overall, if you're to compare the two films, of course it doesn't surpass the original but its an enjoyable movie in its own right.
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