I dedicate this review to my fellow reviewer (not horror) friend, Jaimie, who is the one person I know who got pissed off at this movie even more than I did, and that's saying a lot cuz boy oh boy did this one suck absolute donkey testicles. This one's gonna be a long one, folks. Lots of crap for me to vent about. Grab some popcorn and enjoy the ride. This is........Carrie......the new one....
SPOILERS AHEAD! UNLESS YOU'RE JAIMIE, IN WHICH CASE YOU ALREADY KNOW WHAT HAPPENS IN THIS TRASH PILE OF A MOVIE
Oh man, where do I even begin? There's just so much wrong with this movie. So many things to discuss, so many inconsistencies and major changes to gripe about. So many comparisons to the original, superior in every single way 1976 Carrie to make. Let's just start from the beginning I guess.
For starters, the main actresses have obviously been changed since Sissy Spacek is too old to play Carrie and Piper Laurie is too old to play Carrie's mother. Now, book Carrie is ugly, acne-ridden, and very overweight, so the logical thing would be to cast someone who can fit those characteristics to an extent (makeup and CG helps a little with that) and still do a good job acting. One actress who comes to my mind as perfect for the role is Gabourey Sidibe, the girl who played Precious. If the casting manager had chosen her, you'd have knocked out the "it's not book accurate" rant I'm about to slam your way, as well as winning over the Tumblr nerds by casting a black female in the role that was previously held by a white girl. They love that kind of stuff; shows you don't care about what color the protagonist is, as long as they get the job done well.
A-HEM
Anyway, instead of doing something cool like that, they cast Chloe Grace-Moretz, who is not only not overweight, but is also one of the most beautiful actresses I've ever seen. WHERE IS THE LOGIC?! The part of Carrie's mother is played by Julianne Moore, who just so happens to be my all-time favorite actress. This is a much more fitting casting choice, although I can't help but think that Sigourney Weaver could've done it better. However, both Julianne and Chloe are incredibly talented actresses and they manage to take a little bit of the pain away with their performances. But that's the ONLY thing that's redeeming about this film. Everything, and yes, I mean EVERYTHING else is 100%, farm fresh, unfiltered cow butt. Let's jump into the plot.
There's some stupid prologue thing that shows Julianne Moore giving birth to Carrie and she portrays the character very well, cursing God for placing this burden upon her. This doesn't last long and it accomplishes nothing. MOVING ON!
We start off with the real intro scene in the locker room, just like the original movie, but hold onto your horses folks because not even 10 minutes into this thing yet and we already screwed up big time. Remember in the original film when Carrie gets her first period and freaks out and then all the other girls throw tampons at her and that's about all that happens? Yeah, that happens in this one too, but to further insult the audience members who haven't seen the original, Carrie reveals her psychic powers in the freaking intro scene and starts moving the tampons on the floor away from her and then she screams and a light above her breaks. Good stuff. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! Since this movie was made in 2013, we have to involve technology because kids these days are always on those darn cellular telephones. One of the girls takes out her phone and starts filming Carrie with the tampons being thrown at her.
Gotta love forced cyberbullying subplots
Here's where the movie makes it's first mistake: revealing Carrie's powers almost immediately. In the original film, Carrie barely ever used her powers at all until the prom climax and even when she did, it was very very subtle, leaving the audience wondering what the full extent of what she can do it. In this remake, you see her blow up a lamp in the first 10 minutes, so if you're new to the whole "Carrie" thing, you're naturally gonna assume that if she can blow up a lamp, she can blow up someone's head. They take all of the mystery and intrigue of watching Carrie's powers slowly but steadily grow and just chuck it out the window.
So, continuing on, Carrie goes home and her mom yells at her like you expect her to, but here's a surprise: Carrie yells back. That's right, that shy, sheltered, scared of everything involving her mother girl you knew in the original film is dead and an angry Chloe Grace-Moretz has overtaken her body, complete with lousy character writing. Carrie is supposed to reluctantly stand there mumbling "Yes mama" over and over again until her mother eventually slaps her and sends her to her room. That's just how it's supposed to go. Carrie is not supposed to freak out and scream at her mother, threatening to kill her with her psychic powers. They took a character and just completely flip flopped how they act in one of the most crucial scenes in the movie! Whyyyyyyy? Also, Carrie's mom slits her wrists when she gets sad because screw movie continuity, we need that gross out factor.
Enter the other characters of the movie. You have Sue Snell, played by No Career After This Movie Girl, Billy Nolan, played by Not John Travolta, Chris Hargensen, played by Pretty Blonde Girl, Miss Collins the gym teacher, played by Who Even Cares, and Tommy Ross, played by Augustus Waters from The Fault In Our Stars. Something tells me that they tried to get Chris Hemsworth to play Billy Nolan because he definitely fits the studly jock stereotype, but I think Chris Hemsworth knew better than to take a movie as dumb as this. Plus, he was already probably doing Cabin In The Woods, which is Citizen freaking Kane compared to this movie.
If you think these characters are gonna be interesting or well-developed, guess again nerd, they're exactly the kind of washed-up, only-there-to-advance-the-plot nothings that modern horror movies like this just love.
So nothing else happens before the prom finale except for Carrie and Augustus Waters getting kinda close and Carrie using her psychic powers every 5 seconds because kids these days are too stupid to understand subtlety and they need the fact that Carrie is psychic to be shoved in their face or they'll get bored with the movie. At this point in the movie, Carrie has advanced her powers from blowing up a lamp and a water cooler to levitating her bed with her on it and spinning books around her like a freaking Kadabra. Blah blah blah, is it time for the pig blood yet?
Actually yes, let's move onto the prom finale, the only thing people who saw the first movie watched the remake for. I watched this remake hoping that all the crap that led up to the prom finale would be forgotten with a massively upgraded prom killing spree, showing how far special effects have come since 1976. What I got was a massively ridiculous gorefest that doesn't hit nearly as hard as it did in the original because you freaking revealed Carrie's full power at the start of the movie and didn't stop showing her using it until this point you freaking idiots. Oh yeah, remember that cyberbullying subplot from the start of the movie? Well, that comes full circle here in the worst possible way. They do the unthinkable. They add insult to injury. They freaking show the cell phone video of Carrie getting bullied in the locker room while she's on stage, right before the pig blood gets dumped on her. Totally, 100%, unequivocally, by all means of the word, UNNECESSARY.
The killing spree is kind of impressive, but then again, no it's really not. One thing I really hated about is is the music choice. Instead of silence accompanied by a few shrill violin shrieks, they put in a crappy orchestral piece that just kinda sits there while the scene happens around it. Honestly, you kind of forget there's music at all about 30 seconds in. It's really dumb and I don't like it. A few people burn to death, a few people get electrocuted, two twin girls who didn't do anything for the whole movie but apparently they were villains since they hung around Chris got trampled to death and I felt sad for them because they could've done so much more and their death could've actually meant something, Carrie force chokes the gym teacher, like literally picks her up with her psychic powers by the neck and reaches her hand out and chokes her to death like Darth freaking Vader, and a bunch of other stuff happens too, but I don't remember all of it because it really really sucked. But that all pales in comparison to when Chris and Billy chase Carrie in their car outside of the school. Remember in the original movie when they tried to run her over, but Carrie flipped the car like a boss and it was really cool and not at all silly? None of that here. Guess what? Carrie sees the car coming for her and the STOMPS THE GROUND IN FRONT OF HER AND CAUSES AN EARTHQUAKE.
Hmmm, I wonder where they could've stolen-err "gotten inspired by" that idea from?
However, an earthquake is no big deal for cool driver guy Billy, as he just swerves around the cracks. When they've passed the freaking psychic earthquake (God, I can't believe I just said that), Billy and Chris continue to try to run over Carrie, only this time, Carrie just put her arm out in front of her and makes like an invisible wall or something and the front of the car gets crushed and since Billy wasn't wearing a seatbelt, he goes headfirst into the dashboard, most likely killing him. Remember kids, not wearing your seatbelt might make you look like a cool kid, but if a revenge-driven psychic girl comes and causes an earthquake in front of your car by stomping the ground, you're screwed. After Billy (probably) dies, Chris remains in the car, battered, but not dead yet. Carrie takes full advantage of this situation by using her psychic powers to pick up the car. Then, seeing that Chris is flooring the gas pedal, Carrie makes the wise decision to throw the car at a gas station that's like 20 feet away from her. As expected, an explosion that should have been a whole lot bigger and killed Carrie as well only kills Chris and Carrie seriously pulls a Cool Guys Don't Look At Explosions walk as the rest of the station blows up.
Jazz Hands! Ha-cha-cha-chaaaa!
The prom climax is over and half of the people in the theater have left. What's left? Oh yeah, the mother murder! Are they gonna stay true to the book and have Carrie use her powers to stop her mother's heart or are they gonna copy the movie exactly and just leave it with a simple knife to the heart? Kind of in the middle of those two. Carrie takes a bunch of scissors and knives and impales her mother to the wall with them, but it's cool and different and ironic this time since she put some knives in her hands and feet so her mother looks like Jesus crucified on the cross. It's kinda dumb, I know, but I appreciate the effort they put in to making it a cool ironic death. I bet a few people clapped in the theater.
After that ordeal, freaking Sue Snell comes by and sees Carrie and her dead mother. Sue tries talking to her, but Carrie just force chokes her. Carrie lets Sue go for some reason and she runs away just in time to see the house CGI itself apart. Then the big twist that isn't a big twist if you read the book comes and Sue Snell is preggers. Yyyyaaaayyyy???? Nobody cares??? Just get to the credits so I can get out of this theater and demand a refund?????
So yeah, that's the 2013 Carrie remake. It sucked. It really sucked. It just didn't need to be made. Like, at all. They could've just left the original movie alone and had The Rage: Carrie 2 be the only blemish on an otherwise great book adaptation. Now there's two ginormous zits on the beautiful face of Steven King's Carrie. Honestly, this movie is an insult to the original. Everything the 76 version did right, this movie did wrong, and everything the 76 version did wrong, this movie did worse. I'm still super pissed off that they reveal Carrie's powers in full within 10 minutes of the start. That's just like an insult to the audience, like you think they're too stupid to appreciate the subtle build up of power that the original did so well. The only thing redeeming about this film is the acting by Chloe Grace-Moretz and Julianne Moore, which is saying a lot because they really make something out of nothing with this godawful script. If you've seen the original Carrie, you probably had reasonable doubts about this remake and if you still haven't seen this movie, I advise you to keep having not seen it. Forever. This movie didn't deserve to see the light of day and it should have been scrapped with Texas Chainsaw 2013. STOP MAKING CRAPPY CONTINUATIONS/REMAKES OF GOOD HORROR MOVIES, PEOPLE! I give Carrie 2013 ONE psychic earthquake out of 10. Like I said, the only decent thing here is two actresses trying to make the best out of a garbage script. Never see this movie. Just don't do it.
You know you messed up when Dave Grohl can pay homage to the movie you're remaking better than you can.
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