Here is my last review of the Carrie saga. This one will be very short as it is a remake of the original movie and I wont have to go into detail about the plot. This was a made for TV movie called Carrie (2002).
What do we got here. Girl gets period for first time and thinks she is dying, check. Other girls make fun of her, check. Psycho mother, check. Girl with telekinetic powers, check. Prom prank that ends in tragedy, check.
In all seriousness this movie follows the book pretty well. It goes the route in the book where investigators are questioning the survivors about the incident and is told in flashback. To understand what I mean go check out my review of the book. It has some missing scenes from the original movie that were in the book which was Carries displays of powers when she was younger and the lawyer scene I alluded to in my Carrie movie review. They even show more destruction of the town which was nice to see.
However, that is mostly the only praise I have for this movie. I found the acting to be horrible. I know it is a made for TV movie but it was just plain bad. The actress who played Carrie (Angela Bettis) did not make me feel like I was watching Carrie. She acted crazy from the get go and I thought she was going to bring a gun to school anytime. I did not feel as much sympathy for her as I did in the book or the original movie. The mother was also not as psycho as other portrayals and was pretty tame in my opinion. She didnt really have the intensity. The rest of the supporting characters were bland.
The movie seemed to drag a lot since it was probably made with TV in mind and commercials. The cuts to commercial got a little annoying. Of course that is nitpicking but other movies made for TV wasnt as bad at this one for cuts to commercials. The main reason this was made for TV and my biggest gripe about the movie *****MAJOR SPOILERS DONT READ IF YOU HAVENT READ THE BOOK OR SEEN THE ORIGINAL MOVIE***** is that Carrie lived and did not know she did all those bad things in the end because they were going to make a TV series out of it ******END SPOILERS******. I can see why it was not picked up.
I am sorry I dont have much else to say except I dont like this movie as well as the others. Maybe it was because I watched them all over the weekend and if I had a break through each viewing I might have a different opinion. It was just not as well made and did not spark an emotional response as the others. I would have a more tidbit on life as I do on anything I write in this blog but I think you get the point that bullying is bad and can hurt people and destroy lives. I might write a blog post about bullying another time so look out for that.
Has anyone seen this version of Carrie? Is so did you like it? I heard they are going to remake Carrie again in 2013. If that happens I will watch it and review it. I hope it is better than this one. My next Stephen King book is Salems Lot. It is a longer book so it will be awhile before I return to these Stephen King books and movies. I will also have three movies that go along with the book. In the mean time if my review didnt scare you off about this movie and you might want to watch it then check out the trailer.
Like I said in the past I will have a tracker of the final ratings of each book or movie I reviewed to show what I liked or didn’t like. It is a rating based out of five stars. For previous reviews if you missed it you can click on the title and it will link to that review for you to read.
Books Reviewed:
Carrie ***
Movies Reviewed:
Carrie (1976) ****
The Rage: Carrie 2 ***
Carrie (2002) ½* (Yes a half of a star out of five)