Carrie simply mirrors predecessor without developing

Being bad is not the worst fate to befall a movie. Certainly, it can be a highly detrimental factor; after all, people are far more likely to be attracted to good films, causing bad movies to receive poor press and poor box office results. Even so, there can be a certain charm to a bad films; hammy acting, poor writing, laughable dialogue, ridiculous special effects and the like all serve to make bad films at least ironically entertaining, if lacking in quality. Barring that, genuinely awful films deserve credit for eliciting some form of emotion from audiences, even if it is negative.

Then there are films which, for all intents and purposes, have no reason to exist. They do nothing, achieve nothing and make audiences feel nothing. If this sounds like a more boring experience than watching a bad movie, it is. It is also the unfortunate fate to befall Carrie, the recent remake of Stephen King’s classic horror story.

The plot is relatively straightforward. Chloë Grace Moretz, best known for her role as Hit-Girl in Kick-Ass, plays Carrie White, a shy, unassuming girl living under the thumb of a psychotic mother. A frequent target of intense bullying both at school and at home, the dangerously quiet Carrie soon discovers that she possesses telekinetic abilities triggered by extreme emotional distress. After a horrifically cruel prank at her senior prom pushes her over the edge, Carrie sets out on a murderous rampage, psychically slaughtering all those who have bullied her in the past.

On paper, the film has all the right set pieces for a good horror film. It has a decent, if tried-and-true story. The characters, while flat, all have their own distinct personalities, which is always a bonus. However, the film is crippled by one factor that it simply cannot overcome: This film already exists. It was made in 1976, at a time where the tropes it derives its plot from were still fresh and new.

What’s worse, the original Carrie film is hailed as a landmark in the horror film genre. Inevitably, comparisons will be made with the original, and as such comparisons are made, it becomes clear that this remake contributes absolutely nothing new or valuable to the Carrie name.

One cannot overstate the sheer difficulty in remaking classic films, for it requires a certain balance. On one hand, it has to deviate somewhat from the source material; the entire point, after all, is to tell the story in a different manner, which must inevitably lead to some changes. On the other hand, it must also remain faithful to that which it is based upon, capturing the same spirit so as to convey the overall tone properly.

This remake of Carrie almost entirely abandons the former in favor of the latter, staying so true to the original film that one has to wonder what the purpose of remaking the film was in the first place. Even worse, the film actually does worse than its predecessor at achieving the exact same goal.

Despite being a horror film and being filled with death scenes, torture, jump scares and enough fake blood to fill most aquariums, the scariness of this film is surprisingly, for lack of a better term, dead. No scene is truly frightening. The disturbing imagery is more likely to make audiences’ skin crawl in disgust, rather than fear, which should never be the aim in a film like this. The jump scares don’t frighten, causing many of them to die without eliciting so much as a flinch. Many of the scenes play out more akin to scenes in a supernatural drama than a true horror story.

Granted, within these dramatic scenes, we are given remarkable insight, which is both explicit and implicit, into the minds of the characters. These quieter, more dramatic scenes do allow some of the acting talent in this film to shine through; it is worth being noted that there are no truly bad performances here. Moretz’s portrayal of Carrie is both very sympathetic and unforgiving, allowing audiences to both connect with the pain and tragedy of the character while simultaneously reminding them that she is a mentally unstable killer.

Julianne Moore, who plays Carrie’s insane mother, gives such an over-the-top performance that while the character comes off as completely evil and ridiculous, she is at least interesting. The real weakness in the cast is arguably the group of bullies led by Portia Doubleday, who plays Chris Hargensen, all of whom are cruel for the sake of being cruel. While arguably an apt depiction of true bullying, these characters are given no motivation and no character flavor to their cruelty, and end up falling flat as one-note villains.

There is not much else to say about Carrie. Its special effects are passable, but nothing groundbreaking, and what little music its soundtrack has will be forgotten by the time audiences take out the DVD.

In the weeks leading up to the film’s release, there was a prank video trending on YouTube, meant to be an advertisement for this movie. Using hooks, tracks and remote-controlled mobile furniture, a coffee shop staged a fake incident with a telekinetic girl tearing the shop apart after a stranger spills coffee on her. That advertisement, clocking in at barely three minutes long, is more entertaining and fulfilling than the 90-minute film it advertises. Watch that instead, and let this re-imagining fall into obscurity.

Overall rating: 2/5