2013's CARRIE falls into the bloody heap of unnecessary horror film remakes, piled on top of Gus van Sant's Psycho and nine or ten re-imaginings of Night of the Living Dead.
You can't blame the cast, especially the very talented young Chloe Grace Moretz (Kick Ass, Dark Shadows) as Carrie and Julianne Moore as the disturbed Mrs. White. They are both terrific.
The production values are good, the CGI is admirable in execution but somehow routine and some of the supporting characters are made so incredibly unlikeable that they become hard to watch, even as you anticipate Carrie's inevitable revenge against them at the prom.
Brian De Palma's original was certainly less expensive, less streamlined and less stupid, with all the creative edges smoothed off the original version to craft the new Carrie sleek and dumbed-down for today's uber violent slasher audience.
The prom scene still packs quite a punch, but by the time Carrie was levitating cars and collapsing houses like the Freeling house at conclusion of "Poltergeist", I was rolling my eyes more than I was averting them in horror.
Just compare the very last scene in the original to the last scene in the remake. The one opportunity to still pack a punch just fades quietly into darkness, which accurately describes the entire film.
There's a reason this sat on the shelves at MGM for a long time before slithering into and out of theatres quickly last year.
Carrie gets a shrug and a C-.
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