Carrie

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: No
Watched With: Tyler

This made for tv version really does just drive home how good the original version is. Having just watched Angela Bettis in the absolutely brilliant May, and the original and then finding out she played the same part the same year May was released, well curiosity got the better of me and I just had to track it down.

In truth pretty much all the actors, who I recognise from bit parts in other teen movies and tv shows, do a pretty good job, it's just the adaptation isn't as solid in terms of character stuff. (except for Katharine Isabelle who just comes off like she's in a cartoon the entire time and doesn't match tonally what anyone else is doing.)

The modernisation is subtly done however in order to be different from the film they've added in some new sections, presumably from the book, that don't add that much to the central story, and they've taken away some of the great character scenes. Patricia Clarkson as Carrie's mum gets shafted the most. They've also made Carrie slightly more inherently evil instead of innocent which just seems to be completely wrong.

But they do have the meteors. Or at least they do their best with a small tv budget.

I really didn't like the way this was shot. And much of the dialogue was terrible. I don't know the purpose of the detective and those framing scenes were. Presumable this is all in sticking closer to the original novel. And there is an open ending that would allow for what I can only imagine to be a hilarious tv series following Carrie travelling across the U.S. using her evil powers to fight crime or something like that. One can only imagine because obviously that never came to pass.

Well, it's a nice try but I think it fails more often than succeeds.