Carrie is a 1976 horror-thriller based on Stephen King's debut novel of the same name. Seeing as it was King's first book, it's certainly not his best; it's not particularly frightening, and the pacing seems off at times. Coincidentally, the movie suffers from many of the same problems as the book. But whereas the book is a fairly entertaining read, the movie is actually quite boring. But that being said, it's certainly not terrible, and at least tries to respect the source material.
The main problem with the film is the book it's based on. Carrie adapts the book as close as is cinematically possible. But the book constantly switches back and forth between the regular narrative and excerpts from various psychology books and magazines that mostly focus on Carrie's psyche and an attempt at discovering what happened on the night of her high school prom. This adds a strangely suspenseful angle to the book, by giving the reader brief glimpses of the ending, which builds up until we finally see what happens from the regular narrative standpoint. The film leaves these parts out, as it would have not translated well to film. Unfortunately this kills a lot of the suspense, and the movie's ending lacks the punch that the book had. And while the film version thankfully fixes some of the pacing problems with the book, it does so at the price of further killing the suspense.
If there is anything good to be said about the film, however, it's the acting. Sissy Spacek was the perfect choice for Carrie. She fits the description King gave her in the book, and she has the acting skills to pull the character off. And while the ending does lack suspense, we genuinely feel sorry when Carrie gets humiliated in front of her peers. Piper Laurie was also a great choice for Carrie's mother. While personally I didn't think she looked like how I envisioned the character, Laurie still does a great job of portraying a religious zealot without turning it comical.
Artistically, this is a very strange film as well. After reading Carrie, the only word I could think of describing it as was "strange". And the film adaptation is very strange, too, but not in the same way. There's a great deal of soft light used throughout the film, causing many scenes to look like watercolor paintings. There's also a strange overuse of low-angle and high-angle shots, which then typically end up zooming in on something. There are scenes of normal conversation that are filled with these shot sequences, and it becomes very annoying and distracting after a while. Perhaps the director was trying to go for some artistic angle I'm unaware of, but regardless I still think the cinematography is strange.
Both the book and movie versions of Carrie are famous for their ending, in which Carrie kills all her fellow students with telekinesis after having a bucket of pig blood poured onto her. The scene is so famous, in fact, that it was depicted on the film's poster and subsequent home video releases. But one people often forget is that the sequence is much shorter in the film, and a lot less creepy. The last third act of the book is spent on detailing the sheer amount of carnage that Carrie brings upon the town. She literally decimates half the town, after blowing up the school, blowing up a gas station, downing power lines, and cutting the water supply to all the town's fire hoses. In the film she sprays people with a fire hose and some people accidentally get electrocuted. Needless to say, the movie's ending seems a bit underwhelming.
In both versions, Carrie eventually comes home, where her crazed mother tries to kill her. The film version ends with Carrie's mother being killed with not-so-subtle religious undertones, and then Carrie's house collapses in on the both of them. There's a brief scene showing that one of the characters still lived, a cheap jump scare, and then the film's over. The book ends similarly, except without the overtones and Carrie dies in a parking lot instead of a collapsed house. Not much difference there, but it feels like the film should have scrapped the house-collapsing scene and used the money for a better prom massacre scene.
Overall, Carrie is a strange but faithful adaptation of the book. It tries really hard to be as good as the book, but fails for the most part. If you haven't read the book, you'll probably enjoy the movie a lot more, but if you have already read the book, it's still worth looking in to. I'm sure there are a lot of people who enjoyed the book more than I did, and so those people will probably like the movie a lot better, too. As is with most of the movies I review, I certainly didn't hate it, but I thought it could have been a lot better.
Enjoyment- 3/5
Quality- 4/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074285/
September 14, 2012
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