This past weekend, “Carrie” returned to the big screen for the first time since 1976, but this time it’s more gruesome and modern.

Director Kimberly Peirce remade the classic horror film about Carrie White (Chloe Grace Moretz), a timid girl who has spent her senior year as an outcast, being shunned by her classmates and sheltered by her mother’s (Julianne Moore) overbearing religious beliefs. Although she is quiet, after being harassed one-too-many times, she unleashes her telekinetic powers at the senior prom.

Peirce does an excellent job of making this classic movie much more modern and relatable. The high school scenes seem more realistic in this version. She was able to take full advantage of the opportunity to update the story for viewers of the modern age.

Carrie is portrayed as a “misfit” as soon as the movie begins, and girls in her high school locker room torment her. A hateful classmate, Chris Hargensen (Portia Doubleday) leads the taunting. The bullies film the ordeal on their cellphones, which they upload to the Internet later on — one of the most noticeable differences from the original.

The bullies are punished, and Chris is eventually banned from the prom. Acts of vengeance soon follow.

However, Sue (Gabriella Wilde), Carrie’s good-girl classmate, feels extremely guilty about her involvement in the harassment, so she persuades her athletic and popular boyfriend Tommy (Ansel Elgort) to take Carrie to the prom with him. Although Carrie thought the date was a joke at first, she ends up deciding to go.

While the film is filled with strong acting, the most underrated performance goes to Wilde. She did an outstanding job as the counterpart to her evil classmate Chris — the main instigator of Carrie’s problems. Her acting makes the audience feel sympathy for her character, Sue, even though she has a prominent role in bullying Carrie.

During the movie, Carrie has a desire to fit in with her other classmates, but her mother isn’t happy about it. As soon as Carrie mentions the prom, her mom suggests they sit together and pray instead, as she often does in situations when the two disagree.

At the same time, Carrie is quickly starting to discover her telekinetic powers. She uses them for her own good, levitating her mom when she is upset with her and locking her in the closet — like her mom did to Carrie.

Julianne Moore and Chloe Grace Moretz make a good mother-daughter duo. Moretz displays the perfect amount of sweetness and innocence, as she is able to evoke a certain amount of sympathy — even when she is behaving at her worst. Moore does a fantastic job in her full-force crazy mode. The role allowed her to go over the top without seeming too dramatic or out of place.

The special effects are an excellent attribute, and they play a huge part in the film, but overall “Carrie” is nothing special. It is a solid remake but fails to surpass the original — which remakes rarely do.

While it was frightening at times, it was gorier than anything else, with the amount of blood that was shown. Despite this, the film’s release comes at the perfect time of the Halloween season: especially since another “Paranormal Activity” film did not hit theaters this October.

If you are looking for a solid remake of a Halloween classic, “Carrie” will be the movie for you. Just don’t expect a terrifying horror flick.

Published on October 22, 2013 at 10:56 pm

Contact Brittany: baruss01@syr.edu