EBJ
'CARRIE' - 1976Directed by Brian De Palma{The Wedding Party; Singers}Starring Sissy Spacek{Prime Cut; Badlands}, Piper Laurie{The Hustler; Son of Ali Baba} and Nancy Allen{The Last Detail; Forced Entry}Plot Overview: Carrie(Sissy Spacek{ is a young girl, in highschool, who is bullied for being different and every night must go home to her abusive, religious mother. After Carrie receives her first period, in the middle of school, her bullying becomes more frequent, all the way until she is about to burst.Before I watched this movie, I made sure to read King's novel. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. So I went into this movie rather excited about the possibilities. And after watching it; it was fine. Yeah. It was alright. I liked some changes, disliked others. I wouldn't gloat about it being a masterpiece but I certainly wouldn't dismiss it as awful. It's a fine movie. That's the best way I can sum it up.What are the movie's main positives? Sissy Spacek as Carrie was a phenomenal performance. In a disturbing way, I bought into her being a depressed, troubled, poor, tortured soul, and constantly felt sorry for her in all the barbaric abuse she had to put up with. It was a performance that could have certainly won an Oscar; it was that good.Another excellent performance would be Piper Laurie as Carrie's mum. THIS was a genuinely terrifying performance. I don't like religious nut jobs at the best of times so one of them having complete power and control and dominion over me is scary enough. Add Laurie's twisted and demonic performance as the literal embodiment of Satan, and you've got a fantastic, chilling and memorable performance that could also have EASILY won the Oscar.Most of the remainder of the acting(except one person) was pretty good. Nancy Allen was great as the sadistic and cruel Chris. Amy Irving succeeded in her limited screen time at portraying the remorseful and sorrowful Sue. William Katt was also good as the cheerful and helpful Tommy Ross. With the exception of one person, no one did a genuinely poor performance in this movie, for me at least.Another massive praise I can give the movie is the remarkably unsettling way it is shot and edited together. De Palma's remarkable skills made moments in this movie chill me to the bone. I was constantly uneasy and on the edge of my seat, and De Palma masterfully drums up atmosphere and suspense until we reach the climax. Pino Donaggio's excellent score also helps in this brilliant creation of suspense and makes the movie constantly put me on edge.I love the original Stephen King story and therefore the aspects that do carry over are excellent and horrifying to behold. They do, however, make quite a number of changes. One of these changes, I absolutely loved. I won't spoil it but it was a genuinely creepy and horrifying moment of the film. It legitimately sent goosebumps and shivers down my spine. That is the only change I liked however, which I will now elaborate on.Obviously books cannot be translated to film word for word, and things either need to be altered, removed or condensed to make it a pleasant viewing experience. But the sheer amount of the third act that they condensed down made it annoying to watch. I was looking forward to seeing certain scenes and moments but they either cut it out COMPLETELY or edited it drastically. One of them was a specific way in which something happens to a major character. They COMPLETELY change how this happens to them and I really, really disliked that. The movie would have been fine at 2 hours, if they let the third act flourish like it was supposed to.And now for that actor who I mentioned before. John 'The Madman' Travolta. I have no issues with this man. Is he mentally unstable? Yes! Does this benefit his roles? Of course! Is he at least a fun actor? Definitely! I don't have issues with the man as an actor but there was something about him in this movie that I just REALLY did not like. He just wasn't that good in the movie. The character he plays was a very interesting one in the novel. I was pleased with how much of the character remained but not with how they portrayed him. I just think that Travolta was the wrong guy to cast in this role. He doesn't fit the role, in my honest opinion. Overall, I do like this movie. It maintains chunks of the original story, each of which is a delight to see on screen. It contains a steady series of excellent performances, and it features a very uneasy atmosphere. But I detest how much they altered the third act. I feel a little bad for marking it down so much but I really think it shouldn't have been changed. The climax of King's novel was fantastic, this is just lazy and uninteresting. But as a whole I do recommend this movie. I'll rate this movie 6 'Disturbing Shower Scenes' out of 10!
pyrocitor
Quick – picture the scariest, most blood-curdling thing in the world. Don't think – just picture it. An image; a moment; a feeling of such utter mortification, disgust, and soul-chilling repulsion, even tangentially picturing it makes your skin clammy and fills you with dread. Have it? Good. Now, let's compare notes. I'll hazard a guess: it's not vampires, zombies, or ghosts. It's not clowns, axe-murders, or murderous children. It's not falling, being trapped underwater, or in a tight space. It's high school. Yes, it's a profound enough realization to catapult Stephen King from up-and- coming novelist to genre titan, pioneering decades of audiences realizing the true horror was not elaborate fantasies on screen – it lay in the people surrounding them in day-to-day existence, and just how perverse, vindictive, and creatively cruel they could be. And it's a guiding principle that helps Brian De Palma's seminal adaptation of King's fledgling classic persist as more than a schlocky '70s thriller, landing in The Exorcist camp of one of the most deeply disturbing but perversely, sheepishly enjoyable cinematic frights of all time. And that's not even factoring in the blood-drenched mass-murder by telekinesis. De Palma, a director largely acclaimed for style at the expense of substance, here finds the ideal wedding of the two, recognizing that King's parable is all the more gruesomely effective when seen through the heightened, hormonal dizziness of high school. At first glance, we're given the sense he's somewhat sold himself short, as the cheerfully gratuitous credits, featuring a gaggle of spectacularly naked coeds bouncing around a change room, suggest a jocular resignation to the comic book camp of B-horror (B for beeeeewwwbbs, naturally). A subsequent shot of Carrie ambiguously pleasuring herself in the shower, pelted by a playfully ejaculating shower head, is straight out of a porn parody. But then: a spurt of blood, and the shower's gone ice cold, as we're plunged into one of the most chilling openings to a horror film imaginable, as Carrie's histrionics, blindsided by her first period, are trumped by the scarring spectacle of her being pelted with tampons by her hooting, jeering cohort. And then the shoe drops: De Palma, cunningly, has cottoned on to the true horror inherent in King's treatise being the see-sawing of expectations being requited and rebuffed. Initially, horror takes the backseat to satire, as De Palma gleefully lampoons the genre's objectification of female sexuality, and tacks on a deceptively savage incitement of the school system's inability to properly address bullying and mental health concerns (here, Betty Buckley expertly riddles her do-gooder teacher's kindly exchanges with Carrie with pedantic clumsiness and subtle resentment), while sprinkling in visits from Carrie's horrifically deranged mother (and the most distressingly leering Jesus on a crucifix in cinema history) so unhinged they can't help but ring grotesquely emotionally true. The social commentary is tempered somewhat by the slightly out-of-touch 'male writer hypothesizing what it's like to be a high school girl' (not helped by a cast nearly as visibly inappropriately old as Grease), but the cruelty rings hauntingly true. But De Palma changes gears to to full-blown suspense building in the second act. Hardly subtle about his amorous Hitchcock influences (check out the sampling of Psycho's shrieking strings in Pino Donaggio's elegantly bombastic musical score), De Palma treats prom like Hitch's proverbial bomb on the bus - the anticipation, watching every last piece fastidiously click into place, is what makes it horrifying. With sadistic cheerfulness and perfectly steely, squirm-inducing pacing, he cross- cuts between Carrie, audaciously daring to hope she could still integrate with her peers at prom, and her classmates taking a late night jaunt to the slaughterhouse. It's almost unbearably cringe-worthy - pop culture infamy ensures we know exactly what the coup de grace is, but can't quite look away as it painstakingly runs its course. The final blowout itself - a maelstrom of dizzyingly circling cameras, whip- pan zooms, fast-forwards, and split-screens - toes the line of being distractingly stylized, but it's too guiltily, sordidly cathartic a payoff not to drink up. What we don't expect is a climax part II - even more distressingly batsh*t, as Carrie's mother requites the looming Psycho allusions before Carrie - literally - brings the house down. Tack on a jump scare coda that suggests De Palma, smirking, trying to outdo the heart palpitations from his buddy Steve's shark movie, and there's no question we've got a chilling classic on our hands. Sissy Spacek is almost achingly perfect as the titular telekinetic, and there are few cinematic images that convey the writhing claustrophobia of adolescent isolation as her pitifully slumped, dishevelled form. Watching her painstakingly build nuggets of self-confidence, conceiving that her supernatural abilities could be miracles rather than satanic curses, to her beaming, tearful euphoria at being crowned prom queen, are almost too adorable to watch, making her descent into bug-eyed murderousness as heartbreaking as it is chilling. Piper Laurie unquestionably steals the show with a grotesquely fever-pitched tour-de-force as Carrie's fundamentalist mother, all the more titanically detestable upon realization that, idly humming while dragging and locking her daughter in a closet, she genuinely believes she's acting in Carrie's best interests. John Travolta and Nancy Allen are each deliciously awful as Carrie's malevolent bully and her dopey, sadistically eager boyfriend, their caustic banter as funny as the underlying abuse is unsettling, while Luke Skywalker-wannabe William Katt and Amy Irving are each understatedly earnest as the two sheepishly trying to redeem Carrie's year (the ambiguity of Katt's oscillating enthusiasm as Carrie's prom date remains one of the film's most enigmatic touches). Carrie may verge on being overcooked at times, but its blend of visceral imagery, incisive social critique, and bonkers climactic payoff sear its place into the annals of horror history. So go ahead: take Carrie to the prom. You just might not be sorry that you did. -9/10
