Carrie 2013 Remake: Color Me Not Impressed

Courtesy of http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1939659/

Take a look at the official teaser trailer for the upcoming remake of Carrie.

Let me start by saying, that I am not against a remake of Carrie, just don't say that it will be more faithful to the book when it clearly isn't. My rule of thumb for remakes is that they have to improve upon the original or take a different approach entirely, otherwise they are pointless. For example the American version of The Grudge was pointless, because it did not improve upon Ju-On, nor tell the story differently in any substantial way. Whereas the American version of Let Me In (also starring Chloë Grace Moritz), really did take the Swedish Let The Right One In and give it a different spin, although it left out a very important detail about one main character that the Swedish version left in. Maybe they thought that it might blow our puny little American minds. This looks to be more the former, than the latter.


I know, I know I used more recent examples of remakes. I did that because I wanted to use an example of a good remake. Over the past few years I have watched remakes of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, My Bloody Valentine, and The Thing. None of them surpassed the original. (Am I the only person who thought that they should have given Rob Zombie Texas Chainsaw to remake, and Eli Roth A Nightmare On Elm Street?) I know that there were also remakes released of The Fog, Prom Night, and The Step Father, but I haven't been bored enough to watch them. While I was thinking about remakes I thought of two really great ones (The Thing 1982 and The Fly 1986), but they both came out in the 80's. Go figure. Let me get back to Carrie though.

The imagery has less of an impact than the original 1976 version. Let's forget the 2002 Carrie even happened or dangit why did The Rage: Carrie 2  just jump out of the recesses of my memory? Let's forget that one too. Actually thinking of Carrie 2, just made the 2002 made for TV Carrie look good by comparison. Compare the image of Chloë Grace Moritz as Carrie to Sissy Spacek. Which looks more chilling to you? Is it the lighting or the actress's expression, or maybe a combination of both?

Courtesy of http://au.movies.yahoo.com/galleries/gallery/14270334/compare-the-movie-remakes/

In the book, Stephen King describes Carrie as, "a frog among swans", and "slightly chunky with mousey blond hair and pimples around her mouth". They thinned out Oskar/ Owen in Let The Right One In/Let Me In, although he was chubby in the book. Yet they kept the bullies calling him a pig! I am alright with them leaving out the pimples around the mouth part of Carrie. Eww. However, it would be cool if Hollywood directors/screenwriters/producers had the balls to actually depict her as chubby. Right now is the ideal time to do this, with the childhood obesity epidemic we have in the U.S. It would make her character that much more relatable to teens. 

Another tact the remake could take on is to really tackle the religious super ultra fundamentalism that Carrie's mother displays in the book. How cool would it be to make the mother a strict mormon? But then again, if the mom was a mormon she most likely would have more than one child. Anyway, with religious fundamentalism rearing it's head during the current political climate (What? That whole separation of church and state thing in the Constitution? Pashaw!), there is room to make a statement about it in this movie. 

I will reserve my final judgment for after I have seen this movie. This version of Carrie is directed by Kimberly Pierce, who only has 6 directing credits to her name, most notably Boys Don't Cry. I hope that since she is a female director that, maybe that alone will give this movie a different feel, but I must admit that I would feel more positive about it if were directed by Guillermo Del Toro, or Jennifer Lynch, both directors who can make something soulful and haunting and creepy at the same time.