10/04/10 - Carrie

Carrie (1976, 98 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074285/

I go back to a horror staple now with Carrie. I had never seen this and the plot didn't really intrigue me, but it's such a known film that I felt like I should give it a watch.

The movie follows social outcast Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) as she tries to be popular at school while also discovering that she has telekinetic powers. Her uber-religious mother Margaret White is played by Piper Laurie. At school, the characters are: teacher Miss Collins (Betty Buckley) who likes Carrie; and the popular kids Sue Snell (Amy Irving), Chris Hargensen (Nancy Allen), and Tommy Ross (William Katt).

The biggest surprise to me for this movie was actually the acting of Spacek and Katt. Spacek has far and away more to work with than Katt but she still shines completely. She gives her character subtle little movements of shyness and this makes her socially misfit character all the more real. Even the overall "look" of Sissy Spacek as a person works really well for the Carrie figure. I wasn't expecting myself to like the story arc of Carrie that much, but then again I also didn't really expect the movie to have the tone that focused so much on the social issues and problems of Carrie. I was more expecting some girl that used her weird powers to overcome bullies and then have some big conclusion involving blood. Or something. Instead, I was given a pretty cool character story. It sure didn't fit the horror bill in my opinion but it's still a film that's entrenched enough in popular culture to warrant a watch.

Also on the other character front, I liked Katt's Tommy. I think the character here is somewhat cheesy but it works for what the movie actually is (meaning this character would be stupid if the movie were more horror oriented). Anyway, the thing that works here is that Katt also adds little quirks to Tommy so that he's believable in his role. The relationship doesn't seem stupid or forced which is important. Most of the other school characters work well. The movie surprised me on focusing on this but each pair of these school characters brings some different sort of relationship to the movie which is interesting.

Finally, the telekinetic and overall suspense of the movie is pretty lacking in my opinion. The only real use of this is all at the end at the school prom. There's a really cool long take of Tommy and Carrie as they dance and the camera swirls faster and faster around them. The film also does a good job at setting up the blood spill as it builds up to it for quite some time. It also helps that you never really know which students are all in on this which is a nice little touch. As for those telekinetic powers that I read about? Well, like I mentioned above, they pretty much only feature in this prom scene and overall they don't contribute much here. Sure, there's a fiery episode here where Carrie kills pretty much everyone except the one lucky girl and this is somewhat bad but I feel like basically everyone but Tommy and Miss Collins has been a jerk to Carrie so she's justified in being angry. Obviously killing them isn't the answer but her rage due to her embarrassment is.

Overall, I gave this film a 6/10. Carrie is a pretty lacking horror movie in my opinion. It's also only an okay thriller as everything is bottled up into the last act. The redeeming factors though are Spacek's acting and her character along with the character of Tommy. Spacek's acting is specifically worthy of mention.