A Spine Tingling Thriller

The reimagined Carrie movie stacks up to original

Emily Melbye

“What did Carrie White ever do to you…?”

This is the one of the many haunting questions that surrounds Carrie White, a high school outcast who lives on the edge of town with her mentally insane and religiously obsessed mother.

Carrie jumped onto screens with an award-winning cast including Chloë Grace Moret, Julianne Moore, Judy Greer, and Chris Hargensen on Oct. 18 . Although some details were changes, director Kimberly Peirce keeps the script remarkably close to Stephen Kings’ original novel and Brian DePalma’s 1976 version of the movie. In fact, many lines were directly copied from the original film.

Some differences in this new adaptation include Carries appearance. In the 1976 version Carrie was portrayed as more of a scrawny, large eyed, physically awkward teen played by Sissy Spacek. In the new version, Carrie becomes conventionally pretty and there is more of an emphasis on how her mother’s constant mental abuse has turned her body image into one of twisted failure.

Throughout the movie a relentless clique of girls torments Carrie. Many of the torment scenes are the same in both movies. One example is the locker room scene. In both versions, Carrie experiences menstruation for the first time and believes she is dying. Although she cries out for help, all she receives is even more taunting. The older version shows the girls attacking to a point of violence towards poor Carrie. However the remake has the girls filming the scene with cell phones and attacking Carrie in a more passive aggressive fashion.

Most importantly, the Carrie remake focuses more on her unique set of powers, paralleling them more closely to a power of creativity rather than destruction. In the original version, the available technology limited how they could show Carries powers, and instead it focused on the more important aspects of Carrie, such as her mental insanity. The remake makes her powers seem out of this world and she uses her telekinesis throughout the movie, which really took away from the other themes in the movie, such as coming to age and acceptance. However, in the end her powers are used for their true purpose in both movies. To cause utter destruction.

Even with these slight alterations, Carrie still delivers the same chilling message as the original film, that sin will always be punished in the most gruesome way possible. Carrie is a good addition to your haunting halloween must see list if you are looking for a good scare.