Carrie, a Estranha

I have been eagerly awaiting this movie since I heard of the casting of Chloe Grace Moretz. I could totally picture her portraying the character in the style and feel created by Sissy Spacek and followed up by Angela Bettis (2002 TV movie). I knew she would be a worthy successor after seeing the film Let Me In. I was, however, skeptical of the casting of Julianne Moore as the religious fanatic mother of Carrie, Margaret White.

After seeing the film twice this weekend, Julianne Moore turned out a creepy performance that should definitely garner her an Academy Award nod. Her portrayal of Margaret White was an emotional witches brew of fanaticism, insanity, and maternal instinct. For me, it was an unexpected treat.

As for Carrie, Chloe Grace Moretz did a fine job. She had big shoes to fill, and her performance does not top that of Sissy Spacek. However, she does hold her own. In all three versions of Carrie, each actress has portrayed Carrie in a different way. Each excelling in making the role their own while maintaining the artistic concept of Carrie herself. Chloe did deliver a chilling performance during the scenes where Carrie is exacting her revenge.

As for the movie itself, I would describe it as a remake of the 1976 film sprinkled with some additional elements from the Stephen King novel. It was very well made, and the modernization is appropriate without being too obvious of the change in times, i.e cell phones, the Internet, etc.

In closing, Carrie is an extremely competent attempt at remaking a classic. As I say with all remakes, you have to go into it with an open mind and not with the mind set of comparing it to the original. If you do that, you will find Carrie is a good movie.

Disclaimer: this movie can prove to be "scarrie" for those who are not a fan of the horror genre in general. For those of us who are, at least for me, this movie was everything but scary. First of all, when I heard that Chloe Moretz will be taking the role of Carrie, I was afraid that she might not be able to pull it off. In fact, the only thing I was pleased to hear was that Julianne Moore will be playing Carrie's mother. She is a great choice for the role but the way she handled it, as well as everything else about this movie is - over the top. I could sense the idea of wanting to make a good remake of a classic, but in the end they just missed it... Chloe Moretz is a very good, promising young actress, I don't even wanna talk about acting abilities of Julianne Moore, but they just didn't seem real here. What makes the original Carrie truly disturbing is that it's really slow paced. In its essence, it's a drama about a teenage girl that is being deprived of an ordinary teenage life and experiences that come with it due to her fanatically religious and psychologically extremely questionable mother, to put it lightly. And yes, the plot is pretty much the same and everything, but the general feel is that they rushed it. As I said, everything is over the top, the acting is exaggerated, the relationships between the characters are unconvincing, but it's biggest flaw is that you KNOW what's coming. You have Carrie doing her telekinesis stunts from the very beginning. It's almost as if she was practicing this skill from waaaaaay back, making pencils float around the room, flying the bread over to the toaster - you know, the usual stuff. So when the real thing was supposed to happen, the x was out of the equation making it quite frustrating to watch. It seems to me that, to make a remake of such a classic film you need to put so much thought and effort into every little detail to make it at least convincing enough, if you're not aiming to top the original. This movie seemed like someone got the idea "hey let's make a remake of some classic horror movie... hmmm... which one should we pick... the Exorcist? no, that's to heavy. hey, how about Carrie? Sure! it has a young girl as a lead, we sure have plenty of those, and there's a mother - oh, no, don't tell me? are you thinking what I'm thinking? JULIANNE freakin' MOORE!" And off they went with their brilliant idea and messed it all up. It was to hasty, it was thoughtless, unconvincing and at the end all I could to was to pick the flaws as I was comparing it to the original. I could go on and on about which aspects of the movie I disliked the most, instead I'll just give it a 4/10 and never watch it again. The 2013 version, at least.

Carrie White is somewhat a loner; raised by a fanatical mother who believes just about everything is sinful and bullied at school. She hasn't been told about what it means to become a woman so when she has her first period, in the shower after gym class, she is terrified. The other girls mock her and one, Christine "Chris" Hargensen, even films her on a phone. This lead to Chris being suspended and being banned from attending the upcoming prom; she determines to have her revenge on Carrie. As well as becoming a woman Carrie starts to develop telekinetic powers. Another girl, feeling guilty, asks her boyfriend to take Carrie to the prom... when Chris puts her revenge into action Carrie's powers erupt in a deadly way.

The original 1976 film is rightly considered a horror classic; even those who have never seen it, or read the book, are likely to know what happens at Carrie's prom... which slightly lessens the impact of the scene in this film. Trying to judge this film on its own is difficult but I'll try. It starts well with the characters being introduced and developed and no real violence before the infamous prom scene. Chloë Grace Moretz is the right age for the role and her acting is impressive; unfortunately she doesn't feel as vulnerable as Sissy Spacek did in the original. Julianne Moore is suitably disturbing as Carrie's overbearing mother and the rest of the cast are solid enough. The special effects are pretty good and there are some impressive shocks. Overall I don't think this remake was needed but it turned out better than I expected... certainly worth the 50p I paid for the DVD.

This movie is hardly a scene-by-scene account of Brian De Palma brilliantly 'Carrie'. Yes, it impossible not to compare any remake to its original version, especially when the original is considered a classic. It is sad that with these days' shortage of originality, even a seemingly talented director such as Kimberly Peirce, succumbs to the commercial appeal of movie-making in the sole interest of monetary gain resulting in watered-down quality. Well, I'm not even sure if this movie will make its money back, given the mediocrity in all aspects of its quality. But then again, there are a lot of junks out there that make tons of money. All the efforts for the reimagining, whether it be an attempt to create a franchise or sequel or to modernize the narrative has totally undermined the essence of this otherwise compelling story. The destructiveness of social isolation, religious fanaticism, BULLYING, to name a few, underlined in Stephen King's novel were in no way conveyed effectively in this movie. There is a lack of connection in Moretz's performance and  she is unconvincing as a socially deprived and awkward girl. Julianna Moore as always delivers a competent performance.  But she can only carry the movie so far. As talented as Moretz is, she is a miscast for this movie.  As such, the movie is moderately entertaining at best.

Remakes are often trashed by viewers, occasionally who have seen the older version. This one, i have to say, was pure entertainment. To be frank, there's nothing bad in this movie. But, i didn't say it's not flawed. I was just expecting another horror flick with jump scares and blood spewing all over the place. One minute into the movie, i was rather surprised.

The story is about an innocent teenage girl named Carrie (Chloë Grace Moretz), whom has a mentally abusive mother (Julianne Moore). Her life was very miserable. She got bullied at school and her neighborhood condemn her as being a freak. Until, she found out that she has a telekinetic power that could control every single thing. But, she doesn't know how far her power could go and do to the people who pushes her. All is well until one night that changed it all.

The movie is a remake of the 1976 version. I am glad to say that it was never boring. I was pinned down to the seat and saw the whole thing, especially the climax which i won't spoil any of it.

Julianne Moore, wow! I can't say a word about her performance here. She brought the hell out of her and made me witness her craziness. It was all very freaky and horrifying. Chloë Grace Moretz played the role as Carrie convincingly and made me feel about her character. All of the cast were well-acted.

Though, there's just a minor thing i would criticize.

The CGI wasn't all that spectacular. Sometimes we could see that it's not real. And the pacing was a bit off. Yet, i'd have to say it was well-executed and the effect was pretty gruesome at times.

Conclusion: Very solid remake and recommended for people who loves to be scared, and believe me, you WILL know her name.