Carrie

Trailer- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdoVioPv0fs

I'm not familiar with the original Carrie film but I'd be interested to see how it compares to this 2013 remake. The story of Carrie really drew me in and was clever in the way it made me question who was actually good and who was bad. It's a shame this version is dressed up in cheap teeny horror clothing which gives Carrie a very confusing tone.

Those unfamiliar with the story, think of it as if Roald Dahl's Matilda had a very religious mother, had made it to high school and got picked on a lot. It all builds up to a cruel joke being played on her at prom at which point shit starts to go down as she's pushed too far. That in a nutshell is the story of Carrie.

For what it is it's fun to watch. The film moves along swiftly introducing us to all the one dimensional characters and when action happens it's big and bloody. As much as all the other characters don't have an awful lot to them the theme of not quite knowing if Carrie is good or not is present throughout the film. There's an obvious bitch character and an obvious good girl character but Carrie herself is more complicated. You certainly feel sorry for her a lot of the time but as the film progresses you start to wonder if you do want Carrie to make it out alive.

This of course is most likely a compliment to the source material and not the film I watched recently. I've said before I'm no cinematographer but the film feels very cheaply made. I lost count of how many continuity errors there were, characters looking one way in one shot and looking in another the split second after. It's really not something you should continually notice in a film and it does cheapen it a lot.

The target audience of Carrie is aimed at what I'd call the 'Final Destination' crowd. They don't want to grow deep feelings for the characters on screen, they just want to see them die in horrific ways. People up for that kind of film will be at home here as there's a lot of violence in Carrie for the sake of violence. About 20 minutes of the film is changing set-ups for the next death of bit-characters. I just feel the film could have gone down a much more clever route, focused more on the relationships Carrie has with people etc.

What we get though is still fun while not doing the original story full justice. It's worth noting that Chloe Grace Moretz is great as Carrie and really stands out as the only real acting talent in Carrie.

It's worth watching in the background but you won't be thinking about Carrie days after viewing.

6/10