Last Sunday, I celebrated Mother’s Day in my favorite way – I watched a horror movie with my daughter. Our pick was the 2013 remake of 1976 iconic movie based on Stephen King’s novel, Carrie.
Strangely, I had no idea that the movie had been remade. Somehow, this bit of news escaped me. I’m also a huge fan of the 1976 version, so I went in to the experience with high expectations. Unfortunately, it was a disappointment.
The first Carrie came out when I was only 12 years old, and the movie poster with its image of Sissy Spacek covered in blood terrified me. My parents deemed me far too young to see it (not that I had wanted to at the time), but the movie poster was everywhere. 12-year-old me was both fascinated and horrified.
When I finally got around to seeing it, I found the movie as disturbing as the movie poster. Piper Laurie, who played Carrie’s mother, was a screaming, religious banshee who abused her soft-spoken daughter. The gym scene at the end brought me out in a cold sweat. 1976 Carrie was everything King’s novel was: shocking, gripping, and wonderfully horrible.
Then came 2013 Carrie.
Carrie 2013 – Did It Need to Be Remade?
I’ll start off by saying that the remake wasn’t terrible. In fact, my daughter and I found it mildly entertaining. And that’s the problem. 2013 Carrie was completely bland. With its emphasis on boring, high school drama, it reminded me more of High School Musical with blood rather than an actual horror movie. I wanted Piper Laurie’s crazy, over-the-top performance, and what I got was a quietly, albeit self-harming, Julianne Moore. None of the actors were bad, but they were all very dull. (An exception being Ansel Elgort who is always a charmer).
This leaves the question – Carrie 2013 – did It need to be remade? My thought is no. Remakes are important only if they can give their audiences something new. Like I said in my post about book series, I am a firm believer in authors and directors giving the readers and audience something new. Since the story of Carrie is, at its heart, a coming of age story (Carrie explores her new powers and tests the boundaries of her mother’s influence), I would have loved to see Carrie 2013 go in a new direction. This could have included a queer Carrie who pushed against her mother’s religion. Or a BIPOC Carrie testing the confines of small-town racism. Anything would have made this movie remake more interesting.
My final decision is that the OG Carrie is the better movie by far (excluding the very exploitative nude shower scene in the beginning – which is a post for another time).
