Carrie (2002)

Bryan Fuller and David Carson's 2002 made-for-TV adaptation of Stephen King's 1974 supernatural coming-of-age horror novel, Carrie, will always hold a special place in my horror-loving heart. For starters, it's the very first adaptation of the story I had ever seen, having purchased it on DVD under the assumption it was the "right" adaptation (and at this time, I didn't even know it was an adaptation of a novel, nor did I even know the meaning of the word, "adaptation," yet: I was in Kindergarten). It wasn't until my parents came into my bedroom while I was watching the movie on my computer (this was before I had a DVD player to watch movies the correct way) that I learned the truth: "This isn't Carrie!" my mother asserted. "Yes, it is!" I replied with almost tearful disappointment and frustration. 'Twas then that my father introduced me to the concept of a "remake," a cinematic term I had never heard before and wouldn't be confronted with again until 2007 when Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween went into development. 

Shortly after, I would finally get to see Brian De Palma's original 1976 adaptation of King's high school revenge fantasy, but it didn't ruin my enjoyment of Carson's modernized rendition. Growing up in the beautiful era of the still-in-business Blockbuster, I had the privilege of owning a VHS copy of both adaptations, but somehow, partly because it was the first one I had seen and partly because it introduced me to what became my favorite donut (glazed - though that now has fallen to second place, just behind Boston Kreme), Carson's remained my favorite throughout childhood.

Cut to 20 years later, and, unfortunately, Carson and Fuller's remake has exhibited its inferiority in just about every way to De Palma's faster paced and exponentially more entertaining originator. To be clear, De Palma's Carrie is not the horror masterpiece many critics feel it to be. On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds (or at least held, prior to the website misguidedly removing their average rating feature) an average rating of 8.3/10, which puts it in the incredible category of four stars out of five. To this critic, it earned a 7.4, which equates to a very good three and a half stars. It's a passionately directed and acted horror drama that accomplishes the remarkable feat of taking a story steeped in nonstop suffering and coating it in a thoroughly enjoyable and at times humorous candy shell, resulting in a highly unusual contradiction that nonetheless works: a fast-paced slow burn of a horror story. A story that reserves its outburst of supernatural horror for the final reel, but is so entrancing for the entirety of its runtime that it doesn't leave you desperately salivating for the big, fiery climactic set piece for which it's attained its infamy. 

By contrast, this made-for-TV remake is a sluggish, clinical, and unreasonably overlong interpretation that lacks the camp humor and melodramatic passion and intensity of De Palma's original, however it does compensate with special effects that are above average for a televised production, a script that takes a more faithful approach to the source material, and a gallery of spirited performances that attempt to inject a degree of energy into the otherwise dour proceedings. (Accomplishments that can't be ascribed to Kimberly Peirce's inexcusable Hollywood remake, but that's a review for another week.)

Detective John Mulchaey (David Keith) is investigating a mysterious catastrophe that has befallen the once-peaceful town of Chamberlain, Maine two weeks ago, claiming the lives of 234 people and leaving one teenage woman missing. At the forefront of his interrogation is high school senior Sue Snell (Kandyse McClure), who relays the tragic life story of her former classmate, 17-year-old Carrietta "Carrie" White (Angela Bettis). Having zero friends and somehow even less social competence and physical beauty, Carrie is the epitome of a social outcast. One Friday morning after a disastrous game of softball, Carrie experiences her first period in the locker room shower and suffers a panic attack at the assumption she's bleeding to death, earning the sadistic taunting of her uniformly malicious classmates. At home, her life is no better, arguably even worse, as her mother, Margaret (Patricia Clarkson), is a religious fanatic who chastises, abuses, and imprisons her sheltered daughter in a closet under the belief of protecting her from living a life of sin. Carrie's only source of maternal comfort is provided by her gym teacher, Rita Desjardin (Rena Sofer), who becomes protective of Carrie after witnessing her humiliation and devises a fitting punishment for the young women responsible. 

Feeling guilty for her thoughtless participation in her friends' humiliation of Carrie, Sue asks her boyfriend, the popular and well-liked Tommy Ross (Tobias Mehler), to escort Carrie to the upcoming prom in her place, a heartfelt gesture that Tommy only reluctantly accepts. During these final weeks of the seemingly never-ending hell that is high school, Carrie gradually becomes aware of a supernatural ability known as telekinesis, an internal muscle that permits her to move objects with the sheer force of her mind. It had manifested once in her childhood, but remained dormant until her panic attack in the shower. As she begins to develop a newfound sense of confidence with the emergence of such a power, and a taste of happiness after accepting Tommy's invitation to the prom, Chris Hargensen (Emilie de Ravin), the ruthless and spoiled leader of a clique of mean girls at Ewen High School known as "the Ultras" ("Ultra pretty, ultra popular, ultra etcetera"), conspires with her juvenile delinquent boyfriend, Billy Nolan (Jesse Cadotte), and equally devious best friend, Tina Blake (Katharine Isabelle), to humiliate Carrie one last time with an elaborate prank in retribution for, in her narcissistic, deluded mind, getting her banned from prom. Unfortunately for them, and the entire town in which they've grown up, this farewell "prank" will strain Carrie's passivity and tolerance to the limit, triggering a cascade of destruction and death in its wake.

Carrie White has always stood out from the horde of her fellow horror villains by way of qualifying more as a victim pushed slowly but steadily over the edge. Beginning with her conception -- the grotesque details of which are left unexplained in this movie -- her life has been dominated by a relentless distribution of physical and psychological abuse. Bullied at school for her demure demeanor and hideously conservative (and involuntary) style of clothing and slapped, ridiculed, and enslaved from the outside world at home by a mother who weaponizes religion to satisfy her self-righteous superiority complex, Carrie is never given a chance to grow into her own person. She possesses nary a single mean bone in her frail body, yet just about everyone she's required to associate with on a daily basis loathes her on sight. Her only desire is to be accepted as a human being and find love with the handsome guy who doesn't treat her like everyone else, but that only results in further unprovoked punishment. When the final prank is enacted against her, you can hardly blame Carrie for forfeiting self-control and unleashing her pent-up rage, even if it produces collateral damage in the process. 

Stepping into the eponymous role of the tortured, misunderstood antihero is Angela Bettis, who makes it her own from the moment Victor Goss first trains his camera on her. As indelible as Sissy Spacek was and will always be in originating Carrie for the screen, Bettis submits a performance so full-bodied and transformative that never for a second does the memory of her predecessor's portrayal intrude on the viewer's mind. This isn't so much a performance of Carrie White as it is an embodiment, with the 29-year-old Bettis physically inhabiting every layer of the teenager's skin through appearance, body language, and inflection. 

In the novel, Stephen King envisioned his protagonist as moderately overweight, with blonde hair that faded into a mousy brown and a streak of acne that ran from her face down to her neck, shoulders, and backside. To date, none of the three cinematic adaptations have adhered to that physical description, including the upcoming miniseries by modern genre maestro Mike Flanagan. However, despite her utter lack of facial acne and excess body fat, Bettis possesses the most plausible appearance for the character. I don't intend for this to come across as mean, but at least as she appears in Carrie, Bettis is so stone-ugly that it's unsettling in a way that makes it entirely believable she would be ridiculed by her infinitely more conventionally attractive peers. Her face is so skinny as to make her look emaciated (which suggests her mother controls her diet and adamantly forbids any enjoyable, fattening foods). Her eyes are frequently narrowed, crossed (particularly when encountering a freakout or bout of paranoia), or bulging out of their sockets with the perpetual deer-in-the-headlights terror of an emotionally stunted child woman. Her dark brown hair, quite possibly her most repugnant feature, is so tangled and ratty as to be in desperate need of a brushing that, for some reason, never occurs, with long strands dangling in front of her forehead. Making her character's life worse -- but her portrayal even better -- is the wardrobe her mother forces upon her, invariably cocooned in a white button-down blouse beneath a baggy beige button-down sweater for a double layer of bodily concealment. To shield her legs and thighs from the lustful gazes of men, she wears a skirt that offers the narrowest glimpse of her kneecaps before being cut off by a pair of stockings.

Following her episode in the shower, with her hair still drenched as if it's barely been perfunctorily dried with a towel, Bettis makes her way down the hall toward her locker, her movement slow and hesitant, practically pigeon-toed, her head down with a look of abject misery all over her face. Even as she wishes to fade silently into the background, Carrie can't help but stand out in the malicious eyes of her predatory classmates. Bettis' voice trembles with a childlike tone that brilliantly disguises the fact that she's 12 years her character's senior. When confronted with a question that arouses confusion or surprise, Bettis closes her eyes in a prolonged blink and holds her binders closely to her chest.

However, as Carrie undergoes her development, mastering her freshly awakened telekinetic ability and preparing for her first date with the boy she's been privately crushing on, Bettis showcases a newfound assertiveness and self-awareness, issuing assertions in the forceful, uninterrupted delivery of a young woman who refuses to be taken advantage of any longer and is determined to start living her own life. Cinematographer Goss capitalizes on her official moment of empowerment with a close-up of her serious face. It's a largely physical acting challenge, and Bettis meets every requirement thereof. As Carrie attempts to exercise her telekinesis alone in her bedroom, Bettis stares at her hairbrush (so it turns out she actually does own one?) with a laser-focused, unblinking intensity, clasping her hands together with all her might. You can see the droplets of sweat forming on her forehead and feel the muscle in her mind being strained. When she reopens her eyes after being doused in pig blood, Bettis' hands tremble with horror and humiliation before she throws her head back as her entire body begins to vibrate. Dropping her head back down, she enters into a trance-like state, foregoing Spacek's wide-eyed countenance with one of utter, intimidating blankness, her arms resting motionlessly at her sides. 

The most original rendition of a central character is provided by Patricia Clarkson, who paints her pious, child-abusing single mother in a far more subdued light than that of Piper Laurie. Whereas the latter performed under the false assumption that Carrie was actually a comedy more so than a horror film, steadfastly embracing her own interpretation with a larger-than-life theatricality that earned her an Oscar nomination, Clarkson distinguishes her performance in a manner that's not necessarily more enjoyable, but certainly more sympathetic and grounded in mental illness. In place of Laurie's manic grin and bombastic shouting, Clarkson is invariably soft-spoken and sullen, with mournful eyes reflective of a tragic life warped by misguided teachings and sexual shame. 

Unlike Laurie's Margaret, who greets her daughter with an automatic smack upside the head with the Bible, Clarkson's demonstrates genuine affection and concern for Carrie. She plays Margaret as a lonely, deeply depressed woman who loathes herself and strives to prevent her daughter, the only thing she has left in the world, from making the same mistakes she perceives herself to have made. When Carrie arrives home after being bullied in the shower, Margaret lovingly takes her by her hands and invites her to rest her head in her lap, planting a kiss on the top of her head before gently breaking into a religious sermon against the evils of intercourse. When Carrie refuses to admit undeserved guilt, Margaret dispenses a casual disciplinary slap across the face. Where Laurie would scream her orders, Clarkson utters her demands in a voice that's at once calm and authoritative. As Carrie bangs on the locked closet door, crying to be let out, rather than reiterate nonsense from the bible as if to an invisible spectator, Clarkson remains silent, staring off with an expression of sorrow. This is a woman who genuinely loves her daughter and fears for her soul, but is so consumed by all she's been taught that she doesn't understand what it truly means to love, how to distinguish discipline from abuse, devotion to God from obsession. 

Her wardrobe serves as a symbol of her dominance over Carrie, wearing a purple button-down blouse and a crucifix around her neck similar to her daughter, with her hair always tied in a conservative ponytail. In the scene where Carrie informs Margaret of her invitation to prom over a slice of Betty Crocker cake, Clarkson effortlessly transitions from even-tempered to stern and enraged in a manner that's more credible than Laurie, without a whiff of ironic laughter or scenery chewing. In the original, as Carrie crawls away from her psychotic mother after being knifed in the back, Laurie pursues her with a demonic smile as she uses the knife to emulate the sign of the cross. In the remake, as Margaret holds Carrie under water, Clarkson tempers her horrific action with a sense of regret evinced in her trembling delivery of her final prayer to her daughter. 

To fill out the gallery of colorful secondary characters in King's tragic story, Carson has assembled a uniformly committed and distinctive supporting cast. Emilie de Ravin is a perfect choice for Chris Hargensen, whose role as Carrie's chief tormentor can be debated as either the primary or secondary antagonist (competing against Margaret, that is). I don't know who's worse: a teenager who takes pleasure in harassing students whose appearances and lifestyles fall short of her own, or a mother who physically unloads her own regrets and insecurities on her defenseless offspring. Either way, de Ravin's may be the most cunning, unassuming, and heartless interpretation of the iconic bully to thus far (dis)grace the screen. Part of what makes her such a unique choice is the contrast between her spiteful interiority and naturally stunning physical appearance. With locks of long, blonde hair flowing over her shoulders, curled slightly at the bottom, and a cheerfully sexy smile that could melt an iceberg, de Ravin doesn't fit the expected profile of such a sadistic villain. She doesn't look tough or threatening, instead sporting a cuteness and approachability that evokes more of a horror protagonist like Scout Taylor-Compton (and surely enough, she would go on to play exactly that three years later in Alexandre Aja's remake of The Hills Have Eyes). And it's exactly that warm presence that makes her even more dangerous, never better utilized than in the scene where Chris initiates a private chat with Carrie. Putting on a persona of hitherto unseen friendliness to disarm Carrie and deceive her into believing Sue is the enemy, de Ravin cranks up the cutesy charm, perkily raising her shoulders and speaking in a reassuring, innocently mischievous tone that contradicts her prior harassments.

Matching, if not outright superseding, de Ravin's villainy beat for beat is Katharine Isabelle as Tina Blake. Serving the dual role of Chris' best friend and the vice president of the infamous Ultras, Isabelle makes a four-course meal out of her supporting role. Chris may be the manipulative mastermind behind the prom night prank -- and therefore the instigator of the ensuing massacre -- but Tina is the instigator of the initial bullying attack that reactivates Carrie's telekinesis in the first place. From the instant Isabelle struts across her science classroom to get the attention of her clique leader, she dominates the frame, raising a middle finger to the concept of a "supporting character" and inhabiting the role as though she were slipping into her favorite, coziest sweater. It's a role she seems born to have played, to an identical extent to that of Bettis for Carrie. 

In Fuller's teleplay, Tina is the equivalent of Norma Watson from Lawrence Cohen's screenplay (here a separate character as she is in the book), who was played to scene-stealing, gum-chewing perfection by scream queen P.J. Soles. Isabelle effortlessly captures Soles' exhilarating mix of the boundless exuberance and incorrigible sadism that inspires salivation for her inevitable comeuppance and contagious glee at the joy she derives from others' misfortunes. In place of the perpetual gum-chewing, however, is a marked increase in malice, as Isabelle shoots penetrating glares of contempt at her prey. Together, Tina and Chris represent two of the nastiest and most hateful bullies in the catalog of teen horror. Even their nearly identical names (Chris + Tina = Christina) link them as two halves of the same whole. Oddly enough, Isabelle does exhibit flashes of momentary regret for her misdeeds, as evinced in a single shot after a follow-up prank to the locker room assault, only to quickly double down with a curled lip and animalistic growl. Compared to Isabelle's Ultra V.P., Soles was a peach. Where Soles was rarely spotted without shining a radiant smile, Isabelle's rendition is that of someone who loves to act miserably, at one point early on jeering for Carrie to miss the softball only to react with feigned irritation after she gets her wish. 

Tina is the vilest of the vile, but damn is she a lot of fun to watch! At no point does Isabelle go for broke harder than in the prom scene post-blood dump, her eyes widened and mouth agape with over-the-top incredulity before exploding into an ear-splitting laugh of astonishingly unforced amusement. Carrie represented the second consecutive year of three in which Isabelle starred in a horror film -- preceded by the female-led werewolf classic, Ginger Snaps, which I haven't seen, and followed by the slasher crossover, Freddy Vs. Jason -- and she also had a supporting role prior to all three in the sci-fi teen horror flick, Disturbing Behavior. By this point, her bloody star was already on the rise, and has now reaffirmed her commitment to the genre by playing the titular villain in American Mary, as well as supporting roles in See No Evil 2 and It's a Wonderful Knife.

As Carrie's primary confidante and protector, Rena Sofer doesn't seek to emulate the maternal warmth and tenderness exhibited by Betty Buckley, opting for a sexier and sassier gym teacher written with a sharper tongue and dryer wit. When it comes to dishing out punishment against the Ultras for their lack of empathy, Sofer has her comparatively more levelheaded predecessor beaten, firing out insults and threats with an unrestrained ferocity and contempt that are as palpable as they are intimidating. She's far and away the most effective actress at emphasizing Desjardin's authority. 

Kandyse McClure trades the passion of Amy Irving's performance for a curiously zen energy that makes Sue come across uncomfortably apathetic and sarcastic for someone whose friends and boyfriend died only two weeks ago, but that's more a matter of fulfilling the dialogue requirements of her script. (When called out by Mulchaey for her seeming indifference to the most traumatic event of her life, Sue retorts, "It's been two weeks. They've had all the funerals. Am I supposed to wear black for the rest of my life?") As her loyal, goodhearted boyfriend, Tobias Mehler lacks the boyish charm of William Katt, playing Tommy with more of a protective edge and less of a dream-boy magnetism. His Tommy is like a big brother to Carrie, defending her from a pack of snickering douchebags in the library, agreeing to take her to prom and show her the time of her life, promising to kick the asses of anyone who dares to laugh. But unlike with Katt, there's never a suggestion that Tommy's involvement with Carrie will develop beyond that of an obligation. 

As Chris' boyfriend and co-conspirator, Jesse Cadotte paints a vastly more deranged and malicious portrait of Billy Nolan than John Travolta, forfeiting the latter's goofball sense of humor in favor of an implacable countenance and a glint of menace in his eyes. When he threatens to kill his own girlfriend if she were to get caught after the prank and dare to rat him out, you hear the unmistakable conviction in his voice. When he breaks out in a faux "Nah, I'm just teasing, babe" chuckle, you know he isn't. Meghan Black is given one scene to shine during her first interrogation by Keith, and she devours the opportunity with the same guileless, unashamed, self-aware enthusiasm she applies to her (second) glazed donut, divulging the secretive food chain of high school with a raspy voice full of the joy of having caught a second wind at life. Black has a lot of fun with Fuller's revised version of Norma, here the senior class president who occasionally finds herself on the receiving end of the Ultras' putdowns and joins in on their locker room assault on Carrie out of a clear, unreflective desire to fit in and feel like one of them for a minute. Nonetheless, she knows she isn't, and accepts her secondary place (student body leaders) on the food chain with a confident, bubbly exterior.

The performances go a long way toward compensating for the lack of passion evident in Carson's detached direction, which is paced in a manner that gives slugs a bad name. Carson allows certain scenes to drag on well past the point of necessary audience immersion. Very few horror films can get away with a runtime longer than a typical hour and a half or two hours, and Carrie definitely isn't one of them. How did this kind of leaden pacing not irritate me as a Kindergartener? The teleplay written by Bryan Fuller contains far too many filler scenes whose purpose appears to be to pad out the runtime to an unnecessarily long 132 minutes, and you can feel many of them. Here are some of the most notable momentum murderers: editor Jeremy Presner dissolving from Carrie being elected prom queen to a shot of Margaret standing motionlessly before the crucifix in her disheveled living room; Carrie and Tommy sharing an imaginary dance under the glare of a spotlight set to a magical tune; Det. Mulchaey rummaging through Carrie's deserted bedroom and aimlessly scrolling through her unsigned yearbook; Carrie pacing up and down her living room nervously while levitating her furniture; Carrie undergoing a seizure-like episode in science class out of paranoia that her classmates are passing notes about her. Laura Karpman composes a multicolored score that adapts to the differing psychological states of her protagonist: whimsical and fairy tale-like to accentuate Carrie's fleeting instances of joy or peace; mournful when she's in the presence of her mother, usually after enduring yet another trauma; and finally, propulsive, deep-toned, and heart-pounding during the prom night massacre.

Speaking of said massacre, the distinctive climactic set piece anticipated in every adaptation of Carrie, Carson prolongs the buildup to the pulling of the string and the resultant supernatural carnage, with Presner building suspense by cutting rapidly back and forth between the smiling faces of the unsuspecting, proud clappers, the expectant, conspiratorial faces of the co-conspirators, the hesitancy of Chris, and Carrie, grinning and nearly vibrating with gratitude and euphoric disbelief. Goss films the bucket of pig blood in a low angle shot, making it appear larger to signify the degree of damage it's about to cause. Once the blood is spilled over in slow motion onto Carrie's face, drenching her from head to toe, Presner milks the shocking moment for every drop of tension, cutting between Carrie's traumatized trembling, the slack-jawed horror of the majority of spectators, and the sadistic joy of Tina and her date, Kenny Garson (Miles Meadows). When Carrie's years' worth of suppressed anger reach boiling point and spill over into violence, Carson is restricted by NBC from fully indulging in his protagonist's long-overdue vengeance. While he prolongs the sequence beyond the length at which De Palma operated, that extra time is mostly spent on repetitive footage of students and faculty running and screaming for their lives, struggling in vain to open the locked doors and scrambling for an exit. A fire breaks out and spreads across the gym. Chairs fly into each other and break in half in the air. Lights smash onto the floor and stage. Panicking prom-goers topple over tables. It's all loud and chaotic, but not particularly graphic or visually innovative. Kenny, one of the most loathsome villains of the movie, merely gets his arm stuck in a door. Beyond that, it's only assumed he burns alive (not an unwarranted punishment). Fittingly, Tina gets the most gratifying (and somewhat funny) kill of all, standing still and screaming like a buffoon for no reason until a basketball backboard loosens behind her and swings down, hitting her in the back. As she lies on the floor, the board disconnects from its pole and lands flat on her back. Not very bloody or grotesque, but for a telemovie, it gets the job done.

One of the most significant additions to Carson's adaptation emanates from King's novel: the extension of Carrie's telekinetic rampage throughout the entire town. Due to budgetary constraints, De Palma's massacre was limited to the high school. Here, despite the irony of being a televised production, Carson has the means to go full throttle, transforming Chamberlain into a pitch-black, gothic nightmare. As Carrie slowly makes her way home, cars flip in the air and overturn, metal poles crash through car windows, a gas station explodes. Of course, nobody is actually in the cars being ravaged, nor is anyone shown catching on fire, so the added destruction is more exhausting than legitimately scary. Nonetheless, for a telemovie, the special effects are credible, to say nothing of spectacular or eye-popping. John Carpenter's The Thing, this ain't. 

Beyond the town destruction aftermath, Fuller's teleplay distinguishes itself from Cohen's screenplay in a number of other ways, beginning with his framing device. Rather than telling the story in a linear fashion, Fuller frames it as a flashback a la a previous Stephen King adaptation. Instead of rewinding the clock 26 years, Fuller goes two weeks. In the present, a detective wants to get to the bottom of the mysterious catastrophe that ravaged his small town in a matter of hours. With help from Sue Snell, one of the few survivors of prom night, he pieces the story of Carrie White together with details from one week prior (with one pivotal childhood flashback thrown in for good measure). The final and most morally worthwhile twist to King's story and Cohen's adaptation thereof is Fuller's allowance for Carrie to survive. After initially considering the idea of Carrie transferring her ability to Sue or creating "another Carrie," Fuller realized that killing a character "who is victimized her entire life" would be "really cruel." In his retelling, Carrie is revived by Sue after her mother attempts to kill her, goes into hiding, fakes her death, and is driven to Florida to start a new life (disguised by a less-than-flattering bob wig). The producers' intention was for this movie to serve as a backdoor pilot for a potential television series that never took off. Regardless, Fuller made the right choice in keeping Carrie alive because, despite the damage she left behind and all the lives she took, many of whom were merely collateral, she was undoubtedly pushed well beyond the limit of any human's tolerance. She deserves to be given a second chance, to grow into her own skin and surround herself with decent people for once in her life, now that she's finally unshackled from the domineering abuse of her mother and the relentless bullying of her classmates.

It's also poetic that Sue is the one who saves Carrie's life and hides her from the law. Fuller deepens the relationship between the two characters who exist on opposite ends of the human experience, granting Carrie both a life saver and her first real friend. Unlike in Cohen's script, Sue doesn't just do a good deed for Carrie behind her back. 

Apart from that most radical deviation, Fuller makes subtle but noteworthy tweaks: in recreating the opening locker room assault, the Ultras, led by Tina, come to Carrie as opposed to the other way around, and chant "Period" while banging on the shower walls, rather than pelting Carrie with tampons and chanting "Plug it up" (though both hallmarks are repurposed in a subsequent hallway prank); instead of volleyball, Carrie and her classmates play softball (not really a significant change since it still leads to Carrie missing the ball and earning the ire of her oh-so competitive teammates); for Margaret's death, Fuller opts for King's simpler (and probably more cost-effective) method: instead of being crucified to a wall with flying knives, she's administered a heart attack, possibly a more excruciating form of execution (and certainly one that doesn't leave her moaning with erotic ecstasy); Principal Morton (Laurie Murdoch) still seems to suffer from a ridiculous case of short-term memory loss regarding Carrie's name, but at least he exhibits some cojones when standing toe to toe with John Hargensen (Michael Kopsa), Chris' shyster lawyer of a father; like her literary counterpart, Miss Desjardin is justifiably spared from Carrie's telekinetic mayhem through sheer force of stamina. 

Bottom line: Fuller sidesteps the pitfall of turning his remake into a shameless copy-and-paste job, providing enough changes and adding enough original content to stand on his own while deepening his commitment to King's novel.

The nudity is strategically concealed so as to comply with NBC's regulations. Where original cinematographer Mario Tosi gave us unmitigated access to the private space of a girls' locker room, highlighting the beauty and youth of the teenage female body in all its uninhibited glory, Goss grants his actresses network-imposed privacy from the camera, filming them in their shower stalls from their heads to their lower backs. In a postcoital conversation between Chris and Billy in bed, de Ravin's chest is blanketed (an awkwardly noticeable trait featured even in big-screen productions, typically regarding well-known actresses hesitant to become even better known). 

The ending of the original Carrie ranks among the most influential in horror history, providing one of the most potent blends of a jump scare and nightmare reveal -- one that would be emulated four years later in Sean Cunningham's teen slasher, Friday the 13th. Fuller and Carson pay homage to that parting shocker without ripping off the specifics of what Cohen and De Palma pulled off. To accomplish this, they create a nightmare within a nightmare, and allocate them to Carrie instead of Sue. In the original, Sue visits Carrie's gravesite amid the debris of her burned-down home. As she reaches forward to rest a bouquet of flowers onto the rubble, Carrie's bloody hand emerges from the stones and latches onto Sue's arm, jolting her out of her sleep and leaving her screaming hysterically in the arms of her (on- and off-screen) mother. In the remake, while Carrie visits her mother's grave at a cemetery, Margaret sneaks up behind her and ominously states that "Sin never dies!" Carrie wakes up with a start in Sue's car, and Sue asks if she's okay. As Carrie stares at Sue, suddenly she transforms into Chris, who lunges at her before Carrie wakes up for real. The implication being that, even though both women are permanently out of her life, Carrie remains traumatized by the years of abuse she suffered at their hands.

Unfortunately, neither nightmare is anywhere near as memorable or chilling as the bloody arm grab, and both function merely to drag out the ending. Cohen's conclusion leaves us shaken and chilled to the core, offering a glimpse into the freshly traumatized mindset of a survivor of tragedy; Fuller's double scare registers as an unnecessary and shallow attempt to solicit a cheap jump from the viewer. All of which serves as a perfect summation of this movie as a whole: a somber, distinguishable, superbly acted remake that carves out enough of its own identity, but nonetheless fails to snatch the bloody crown from its eminently superior 70s forebear.

5.5/10