Carrie (2013)

When Stephen King's first novel, Carrie, was published in 1974, King couldn't have possibly imagined where his career would go after that. And I'm sure he never envisioned that Brian De Palma would turn that first book into one of the most beloved horror movies of the '70s. De Palma's Carrie is a movie that horror fans have watched and loved over and over for nearly forty years, which naturally means that Hollywood had to do a remake of it sooner or later.

But Carrie wasn't the typical "classic movie, and then a remake decades later" story. It was actually turned into an ill-fated Broadway musical in 1988, spawned a crappy sequel in 1999, and was first remade as a mediocre made-for-TV movie in 2002. But unless you've been living under a rock for the last few weeks, you've probably seen the advertisements for the new remake. Because of my affection for De Palma's Carrie, I was hesitant to see this new remake yet curious and excited to see how it would turn out. And it turns out that, despite a few very good elements, it's another remake plagued by a "been there, done that" feeling.

It's hard not to feel sorry for poor Carrie White (Chloë Grace Moretz). The daughter of an abusive religious fanatic (Julianne Moore), Carrie's social awkwardness makes her a target for merciless teasing and abuse from her classmates. But just when Carrie thinks life can't get much worse, she gets her first period while showering after gym class. Thanks to her strict, sheltered upbringing, Carrie has no idea what's happening and believes she's bleeding to death. Her classmates take great humor from Carrie's panicked cries for help, throwing tampons and heaping insults upon her. The scene is only broken up when Miss Desjardin (Judy Greer), the gym teacher, intervenes.

Feeling guilty for her part in what happened, Sue Snell (Gabriella Wilde) tries to make amends with Carrie by convincing her boyfriend Tommy Ross (Ansel Elgort) to take Carrie to the prom and show her a good time. But they are unaware of the plans of Chris Hargensen (Portia Doubleday), whose extreme lack of remorse for having teased Carrie ― including having posted a video of the shower incident on YouTube ― gets her banned from the prom by Miss Desjardin. Rather than try apologizing to Carrie, Chris instead wants revenge for being punished. She rigs the ballot to get Carrie elected prom queen, and dumps a bucket of pig blood over her head during the coronation. No one could have predicted, though, that this prank would fully trigger Carrie's burgeoning telekinetic powers, an ability that sparks a violent, bloody rampage.

In my review of the Carrie remake from 2002, I argued that it was a remake fit the times due to the seemingly frequent school shootings at the end of the '90s. This new remake could be considered even more timely. With bullying being a serious hot-button issue and more and more teenagers committing suicide because they didn't know how to overcome the mental and physical anguish their tormentors inflicted upon them, it seems as good a time as any to make a horror movie about a bullied misfit. But all this new remake really does is include a few coy references to social media. It doesn't tread any new ground, nothing we haven't seen before. The original movie is timeless, with the ugly fashion of the '70s being the only part that hasn't aged well, and this new remake doesn't do anything to make itself stand as anything close to equal with it.

But that's not to say it it's a bad movie. I actually thought it was rather well done in spots. This was in part due to the fine direction of Kimberly Peirce, who builds actually builds a fair amount of tension in a few sequences, especially the scenes where Carrie and her mother are together and the movie's climax. Carrie's massacre at the prom is one of the entire horror genre's most classic moments, and Peirce handles it excellently. The overdone CGI doesn't help, but I felt that the whole scene ― from the moment Tommy and Carrie's limousine arrives at the prom to when a blood-drenched Carrie arrives home after causing so much carnage ― is spectacularly done. Granted, it's a little weird seeing Carrie using her telekinesis to actually fly across the room to avoid being electrocuted on the wet gym floor (I felt the 2002 remake did this a lot more effectively by having Carrie push the water away from her feet with her powers), but I still felt the sequence was amazingly done and actually pretty satisfying.

The only really bad part is that a lot of the time, the movie feels like a typical post-Scream teen horror movie from the end of the '90s. It's slick and glossy, full of pretty people and mediocre actors. This remake of Carrie could have fit right in with movies like Urban Legend or I Know What You Did Last Summer (or even The Rage: Carrie 2, for that matter). It doesn't help anything that this is the third time the story of Carrie White has been told (or fourth if you want to count Carrie 2), which can leave you with a legitimate feeling that you've seen it all before. Pierce doesn't tackle the material with any sort of unique perspective or approach, and much like the sequel and the other remake, all this new movie accomplished is leaving me wanting to watch the original movie instead. The only thing she really improves upon is adding a greater level of sheer chaos to the prom sequence, and that's it.

I was also really disappointed with the movie's lackluster script. Writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa doesn't give is the fleshed-out, three-dimensional characters that a movie like this needs. Instead, he gives us a tiny step above the most basic character archetypes. Chris Hargensen is a foul-mouthed bitch, Miss Desjardin is the one nice teacher, and so on. There's not much to say about the characters beyond their simplest descriptions. They're dull, lifeless placeholders for where characters were supposed to go.

It's especially bad with Sue Snell, who is so terribly written that I was almost offended. The character of Sue as written by Aguirre-Sacasa is flat and completely devoid of any real personality. Sue's just there because the story dictates she has to be. One almost gets the feeling that she could have been left out without it affecting the story much. And that's particularly frustrating because Sue is nearly as important to the story as Carrie herself. Sue being written so poorly is nothing short of a shame.

Aguirre-Sacasa does get close to doing some good, though, pprimarily through Carrie and Margaret White. I did think he handled their relationship well, though I did believe he could have elaborated on some things. For example, the movie depicts Margaret as being prone to hurting herself. She bashes her head against a wall, jabs herself in the arms and legs with sewing implements, and so on. I know people who engage in self-harm have a variety of psychological reasons that lead them to do it, but why Margaret White? Is it because she's full-blown crazy? Is it because her insane religious beliefs have led her to add variants of self-flagellation and the old "mortification of the flesh" practices? It certainly makes Margaret creepier, but it actually left me more curious than anything else.

The relationship between Margaret and Carrie could have used a little touching up, but for the most part, I thought Aguirre-Sacasa did an okay job with it. You really got the impression that Carrie truly loves and cares for her mother despite all the beatings and abuse and torture, though whether that's due to compassion or feeling it's her duty as her daughter isn't ever made clear. But either way, I honestly got why Carrie would be a bit weird. If my mother were a crazy person that regularly beat me, insulted me, and locked me in a closet for no reason, I'd probably be messed up too.

But as much as the movie disappointed me, I was especially let down by how frustratingly mediocre and forgettable much of the cast is. If I hadn't made a habit of scribbling down some notes in the parking lot after I leave the theater, I'd have forgotten about most of the cast by now. Gabriella Wilde is practically a blank slate as Sue Snell, never once actually doing anything to make me care. Portia Doubleday, meanwhile, effortlessly plays her character into a vicious, loathsome villain, but comes dangerously close to turning the character into an over-the-top caricature of a more vile version of a character from Mean Girls.

But I will say this about the cast: hiring Chloë Grace Moretz and Julianne Moore was a fantastic decision. Moore is absolutely terrifying, playing the part as a mentally ill woman who would fit better in a cult than in everyday society. Her intensity is scary enough, but the fact that every twitch of her face is practically screaming "kill Carrie!" makes it worse.

Moretz, meanwhile, is fabulous as our title character. She's perhaps too pretty to play the mousy Carrie, but she still plays the role to perfection. Moretz is an immensely talented young actress and she brings that telent to the movie. She gives Carrie a shy sweetness and sympathetic nature, making it easy to like her and feel awful for her while she's on the receiving end of abuse. It also makes Carrie's loss of control at the prom satisfying on a visceral level too. And as disappointing as much of this movie is, it's still worth seeing for both Moretz and Moore.

I don't have a problem with remakes. I've actually seen a few remakes that I genuinely love. But this new version of Carrie is not one of them. I've said it before, most recently in my review of the other Carrie remake, but if it isn't broken, don't fix it. Updating Carrie for modern audiences and modern sensibilities isn't a bad idea, but if you aren't going to make your movie stand out and be something special, why bother? There are some elements of this movie that I did like, but the whole package is one big letdown. His version might have some flaws here and there, but Brian De Palma got it right the first time. I'll just stick with that one.

Final Rating: **

Carrie (2002)

Unless you've somehow completely missed the trailers, commercials on TV, posters and banners in your local theaters, and the rest of its advertising campaign, you've probably noticed that a remake of the classic 1976 horror movie Carrie is being released today. While Brian De Palma's original cinematic adaptation of Stephen King's novel is a great flick that still holds up very well nearly forty years after its initial release, I guess it was time for Hollywood to tell the story again.

But what you're probably unaware of is that this is actually the second time that Carrie has been remade. All is forgiven if you haven't heard of that other one, however. It actually almost immediately fell into obscurity, but that's probably because it was never released theatrically to begin with.

No, the earlier remake of Carrie was instead a made-for-TV movie. Originally broadcast on NBC on November 4, 2002, the movie was intended to be a backdoor pilot for a potential Carrie television show that would've been in the same vein as The Dead Zone. But thanks to poor ratings, the proposed series was scrapped. And while I wonder how the show would have went, I'm glad it didn't get picked up, because this pilot is about as mediocre as you can get.

It's hard not to feel sorry for poor Carrie White (Angela Bettis). The daughter of an abusive religious fanatic (Patricia Clarkson), Carrie's social awkwardness makes her a target for merciless teasing from her classmates. But just when Carrie thinks life can't get much worse than it already is, she gets her first period while showering after gym class. Thanks to her strict, sheltered upbringing, Carrie has no idea what's happening and believes she's bleeding to death.

Her classmates take great humor from Carrie's situation, happily mocking and laughing at her. The scene is only broken up when Miss Desjardin (Rena Sofer), the gym teacher, intervenes. That doesn't stop the bullying, though, as that same day Carrie finds her locker vandalized and stuffed full of tampons. Feeling guilty for her part in what happened, Sue Snell (Kandyse McClure) tries to make amends with Carrie by convincing her boyfriend Tommy (Robias Mehler) to show Carrie a good time by taking her to the prom.

But they are unaware of the plans of Chris Hargensen (Emilie De Ravin), whose extreme lack of remorse for having teased Carrie gets her banned from the prom by Miss Desjardin. Instead of trying to apologize to Carrie, Chris instead wants revenge for being punished. She rigs the ballot to get Carrie elected prom queen, and arranges for a bucket of pig blood to be dumped over her head during the coronation. No one could have predicted, though, that this prank would fully trigger Carrie's burgeoning telekinetic powers, an ability that sparks a violent, bloody rampage.

The tragic story of Carrie White is a timeless one. The only parts of the original movie that have aged badly are the fashion and hairstyles. But updating it for modern audiences, however, is not something I have a problem with. When this movie was first broadcast, it came just a few years after a batch of high-profile school shootings throughout the United States. So even after the September 11th terrorist attacks and George W. Bush's "war on terror" took over the headlines of the time, a movie about a teenage misfit's prom night rampage was still somewhat timely. It's too bad, though, that this remake is a disappointment through and through. It ends up proving that old saying, "Don't fix what isn't broken."

At the helm is David Carson, a veteran television director primarily known for his work with the Star Trek franchise. And for some odd reason, Carson films nearly the entire movie with the camera tilted at an odd angle. It's all very weird and disorienting, never once doing anything to benefit the movie. I just kept thinking to myself that I'd be much happier if the camera had actually sat naturally for a change. It also doesn't help that despite this ostensibly being a horror movie, there's nothing scary about it. The climactic prom scene and the chaos that follows could have been a tense, unnerving experience, but it's instead brought down by unconvincing CGI, a hilariously goofy soundtrack, and no tension whatsoever.

The biggest problem with the movie, though, is that it's too long and bloated, running three hours if you're watching it on television with commercials. Or if you're like me and watching it on DVD without commercials, it clocks in at roughly two hours and fifteen minutes, which is a small bit of mercy. Either way, that still feels too long. There's an hour left in the movie when Carrie and Tommy arrive at the prom, for crying out loud. Carson must have been under contract to deliver the movie to NBC at a certain length, because he honestly could have stood to chop out at least a half-hour of the extraneous fluff that populates the movie. He honestly could have brought this thing in at an hour and a half without commercials, and it would have been a far sleeker, less boring movie because of it.

But it doesn't help that he's working with a disappointingly dull script written by Bryan Fuller. I say that because the largest part of the script is padding, padding, and more padding. It causes the movie to move at a snail's pace, along an uneven path that takes us nowhere for much of the movie. While a lot of the fluff and padding does shed some light on the other characters and the world that surrounds Carrie, it ultimately serves to take away from Carrie herself. Granted, some time should be given to Sue, Chris, and Mrs. White, but Carrie is the movie's central character and it occasionally feels like Fuller loses focus of that.

Fuller does, however, take a different approach than expected by keeping the narrative somewhat closer to King's novel. While the book is constructed in part from eyewitness statements, police reports, and letter excerpts, the movie is told mostly in flashback, with Sue Snell and various others telling their sides of the story to the curious Detective Mulchaey (played here by David Keith). He also throws in some scenes left out of the original movie, like a scene where a young Carrie causes a meteor shower while being abused by her mother. It's a unique way to approach it, but all it really did was just remind me of Blair Witch 2. And if there's one thing I don't want a movie to do, it's remind me of Blair Witch 2.

Being made for network television does not help the movie at all, either. It forces Fuller and Carson to tone things down, to tame them to fit NBC's sensibilities and keep the FCC and watchdog groups from breathing down their necks. The bullies don't seem as particularly vicious as you'd imagine they would be. One character simply whispering "you suck" in Carrie's ear after she strikes out in a softball game feels more lame than mean, and the shower scene at the beginning is nowhere near as hellish as Brian De Palma depicted it in 1976. De Palma made you honestly felt Carrie's helplessness and desperation, but that's nowhere to be found here. The whole thing sadly seems neutered and watered down.

The movie's open ending has also been a point of contention for some people. Since it was supposed to lead to a TV show, I can understand the reasoning behind ending the pilot in such a way. But that TV show never came thanks to the low ratings the pilot got, so we're left with an ending that feels weird and out of place. I do wonder how a Carrie TV show would have gone, though. I imagine it would have been similar to The Incredible Hulk, with Carrie wandering from town to town, helping people and having the occasional telekinetic freakout that leaves a trail for Detective Mulchaey to follow. The show probably would have been awful and found itself cancelled after one season, but it still could've made for an interesting footnote in horror history.

And last but not least, the cast has its ups and downs. Among the supporting cast, Emilie De Ravin's character is written as a mean, hateful bitch, but her dialogue is often so lame that you end up rolling her eyes at her. It doesn't help anything that De Ravin plays the role like she's auditioning for some awful high school melodrama produced for Lifetime. Patricia Clarkson, meanwhile, is no Piper Laurie. She's on autopilot through the whole thing, almost as if she's doing the movie because she lost a bet and is disappointed because of it.

Kandyse McClure tries her hardest and come off as very warm and likable, while Rena Sofer is awesome as the gym teacher sympathetic to Carrie's plight. But as you might expect, the movie belongs to Angela Bettis. If you've seen her in May, then you're not alone if you thought the role of Carrie White would be tailor-made for Bettis. And while she's unfortunately stuck in the shadow of Sissy Spacek, Bettis is fantastic in the role. She brings a complexity to Carrie; you can sense shyness, sadness, loneliness, and fear all at once. Her Carrie would love to belong and live a normal life, but the abuse heaped upon her for so long by both her mother and her peers has turned her into a perpetually frightened ball of nerves. It's an excellent performance that Bettis should be proud of, even if it's wasted in a movie as mediocre as this.

Much like The Rage: Carrie 2, the original's maligned sequel, this remake exists today as something of a curiosity. Many have either forgotten or are simply unaware of its existence, and those who have seen it were often left unimpressed. I will give those behind this version of Carrie credit for at least trying to make the best movie they could. For all the negative things I've said about it, you can still see there's a desire to make a good movie. But try as they might, all they've done is remind me that somebody else did it better nearly forty years ago. I've never had a problem with the concept of remakes in general, but should they make me wish I was watching the original instead? I have high hopes for this new remake, so here's hoping it turned out better than this other one.

Final Rating: **

Misery (1990)

I can understand why some celebrities are hesitant to interact with their fans. I mean, some people are just plain crazy. There are so many famous people who've taken out restraining orders against stalkers that we'd be here all day if I tried listing them. One guy even shot Ronald Reagan because he thought it would make Jodie Foster fall in love with him, for crying out loud.

The topic of obsessive, psychotic fans could make for a great horror story, so of course Stephen King had to be the guy to write it. Thus, we ended up with the concept of King's 1987 novel Misery. The novel was a success, and like most of his successful books, it was translated into a movie not long after its publication. And just like the novel that inspired it, the movie was a smashing success and even won an Oscar. It's been over twenty years since the movie was released, and it still holds up as an intense, frightening entry into the horror genre.

Paul Sheldon (James Caan) is the author of a popular series of romance novels starring a character named Misery Chastain. He's grown tired of writing books about Misery, and has retreated to a getaway in the mountains of Colorado to finish the manuscript for his first novel without the character. But before he can deliver this manuscript to his publisher, Paul is caught in a blizzard that causes him to lose control of his car. He's severely injured in the resulting crash, dislocating his shoulder and badly fracturing both legs.

Rescue comes in the form of Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates), a former nurse who lives in a nearby farmhouse. Introducing herself as Paul's "number-one fan," Annie is ecstatic to have the writer of the Misery novels she loves so much in her own home. He's glad to have someone nursing him back to health, and she's more than happy to do so. But Annie's happiness turns to rage when she buys her copy of the latest Misery book and discovers the character dies at the end. She angrily forces Paul to burn his manuscript and demands he resurrect Misery in a new novel written just for her. As Annie's mental instability becomes more and more frightening, Paul must find a way to survive her violent outbursts despite his physical inability to flee or even protect himself.

Watch a bunch of movies based on Stephen King's work, and it's a veritable rollercoaster ride in terms of quality. Some of them are really good, while some of them are really bad. And while I don't know if Misery can quite compare to classics like Carrie or The Shining, it's still an effective, downright scary movie that any fan of King (and really, fans of horror and thrillers in general) should see at least once. It boasts impressive direction and outstanding acting, and it's head and shoulders over other, similar fare. I honestly cannot recommend it enough.

The movie was directed by, of all people, Rob Reiner. Yeah, the same Rob Reiner that brought us movies like The Princess Bride and This Is Spinal Tap. He's no stranger to making movies based on Stephen King's work, though, having previously adapted King's short story The Body into the movie Stand By Me four years earlier. His direction on Misery is top-notch, making the movie feel like something Alfred Hitchcock would have done. One particular scene where Paul is investigating the house while Annie is away is intensely suspenseful, having a real Rear Window type of vibe to it. Actually, the whole movie is like that, making almost every scene harrowing in their own ways. It does help that Reiner has wonderful cinematography and music to work with, but still, the way he crafts Misery makes you feel like he'd been making movies like this his whole career.

The movie also boasts a very well-written screenplay penned by two-time Oscar winner William Goldman. He and Reiner had previously collaborated on The Princess Bride, and Goldman's script for this go-round is good stuff as well. I've only read bits and pieces of King's novel and that was so many years ago that I can barely remember any of it. But Goldman has masterfully put together a great script. The way he develops the characters is like something out of old pulp noir stories. It grips you and never lets go, keeping the viewer in rapt attention as we try to figure out just how Paul is going to get out of this mess.

The absolute best elements of the movie, though, are the two primary actors. James Caan and Kathy Bates take up 98% of the movie's running time, and they're completely up to the task given to them. But let's do this one at a time, starting with Caan. Caan is good, very good. It's an impressive, engaging performance that brings a lot to the character. You hate seeing him in this position and you want to see him break free and run away. But the fact that he can't, along with how sympathetically Caan plays the part, makes the movie more intense.

But as good as Caan is, he's outshined by Bates. She completely owns the whole movie with her performance. Bates is intimidating, frightening, yet oddly charming. She plays the part in such a way that you can almost see right from the beginning that her initially sweet demeanor is masking a powder keg full of disaster. Bates alternates between frightening frenzy and girlish glee, like if Charles Manson was in the audience when the Beatles played on The Ed Sullivan Show. This only makes her even scarier, because it feels like two completely opposite people inhabit the same body.

And then there's the "rain gives me the blues" scene. Oh God, that scene. It and other moments like it, where Bates is incredibly calm yet incredibly threatening, are so very tense that for me, they were the scariest parts of the movie. And the fact that these scenes are so rare made them even scarier. We get so used to Bates demonstrating either a sweet happiness or a crazed, violent anger that these scenes make it feel like you're stuck in the eye of a hurricane. You never know just which Annie Wilkes you'll get in any given scene, and Bates's performance is so good that I still say she absolutely earned the "Best Actress" Oscar she was awarded for this role.

As I said earlier, Misery might not be on the same level as Carrie or The Shining. But it's still a tremendous movie that really deserves every positive accolade it's ever gotten. It's one of those gems that I hardly ever see people talking about, but they should. If you haven't seen Misery, see it now! If you have seen it, watch it again! It's definitely worth your time. And you know, I think this is the only place I've ever heard anyone use the phrase "cock-a-doody." Why did that phrase never take off? It's so fetch. 

Final Rating: ****

The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999)

Thanks to the success of Scream in 1996, horror movies were suddenly cool again during the second half of the '90s. Studios couldn't crank out their latest teen-oriented scary movies fast enough. And unlike today, where they probably would have just made a few remakes, Hollywood toyed with the idea of sequels. And not just new entries in long-running franchises, either. I mean digging old movies out of the mothballs and giving them sequels.

There were only two of them that I'm aware of, though. One was An American Werewolf in Paris, a sequel that came sixteen years after John Landis's lycanthropic adventures in London. Another was a sequel I'm sure nobody saw coming, The Rage: Carrie 2. How do you make a sequel to a movie where practically every character — including the one the movie was named after — died at the end? But somebody actually did it, and I guess I'll have to review it.

Twenty years have passed since Carrie White wreaked havoc upon her high school prom. The story's become something of a local urban legend, but is still fresh in the mind of Sue Snell (Amy Irving), the sole survivor of that fateful night. She's become a guidance counselor in those twenty years, devoting herself to helping troubled kids to atone for her inability to help Carrie.

She is quickly drawn to Rachel Lang (Emily Bergl), a teenage misfit with a very tiny circle of friends. That circle sadly gets even tinier by the time we're introduced to her, though. Rachel's best friend Lisa (Mena Suvari) commits suicide not long into the movie after she learns that a popular football player she'd given her virginity to only slept with her as part of a cruel game where he and his teammates rack up points for their sexual conquests.

When Rachel rats Eric out, the football team and the school's resident "mean girl" clique start bullying Rachel to a level that Carrie White couldn't have imagined. The only one who abstains is Jesse (Jason London), a handsome jock who has taken a liking to Rachel. She reciprocates his feelings, but the bullying starts amplifying the telekinetic abilities that Rachel began to display after Lisa's suicide.

Sue notices this and tries taking Rachel under her wing to avoid a repeat of Carrie's prom night massacre,  only to be rebuffed as Rachel and Jesse grow closer together. Sue's attempts to help will be for naught, because like with any telling of this story, there will be no happy ending. There will only be fire, blood, violence, and as this movie's title says, rage.

There's been a ton of unnecessary, unwarranted sequels over the years, but few are as egregious as The Rage: Carrie 2. Brian De Palma's Carrie had no real loose ends to tie up, nothing to follow up on. There's no reason for this sequel to even exist beyond a simple cash grab. But believe it or not, it's not a bad movie. It is, however, unbearably mediocre. If I had to guess, I'd imagine the problem with it is that it had to be a Carrie sequel. The original movie is an absolute classic, a movie so good that there is absolutely no way anyone could do a worthy follow-up.

But I'll give credit where credit is due and say that it's apparent director Katt Shea wants to make a respectable go of it. Unfortunately, her work isn't quite as impressive as I imagine she thought it'd be. There are a few instances of some very well-done cinematography, but the majority of the movie feels like the same generic style that a lot of the horror movies from the period shared. And then there's those times where Shea decides she wants to be a little artsy by throwing in some grainy, black and white, stereotypical "independent movie from the '90s" shots into the moments where Rachel briefly loses control of her telekinesis. It doesn't really add anything to the movie, and can actually take you out of the movie a little bit. Shea is at least trying something a little different, though, so I can't really fault her for that.

Where the movie starts falling apart is the screenplay by Rafael Moreu. For the most part, the script is just a really bad remake of Carrie with practically nothing that would qualify it as a sequel. Yeah, Moreu threw the character of Sue Snell in there. But Sue is pretty much a non-factor for the entire movie. Her subplot is utterly pointless and accomplishes absolutely nothing. All it does is add a laughable and unneeded plot revelation — that Carrie and Rachel are half-sisters — while completely wasting our time. And the fact that Sue is casually disposed of the second she arrives at the site of Rachel's fiery rampage further cements just how useless the whole thing was.

But the worst flaw with the screenplay is how it's just a poor retread of Carrie. In the first movie, you genuinely believed that Carrie's life was awful and that her vengeful wrath against her classmates was a long time coming. But the cruelty that Carrie suffered at the hands of her mother and peers is nowhere to be found here. Outside of her friend's suicide and her foster father smacking her once in a while, all that really happens to Rachel is a mean-spirited prank that I doubt would spark a homicidal rage in most people. Rachel suffered nowhere near the level of appalling abuse from her family and peers that Carrie did, which only makes her roaring rampage of revenge seem less inspired.

I also had a hard time buying Rachel as the mousy, abused outcast that Carrie was. While it's probably the fault of the casting department, since they didn't really paint the super-cute Emily Bergl as having the potential for an "ugly duckling to beautiful swan" transformation that Sissy Spacek had. You could just argue that Rachel just runs in different social circles than the cool kids. Rachel simply didn't strike me as the beset-upon wallflower that Carrie was. Sorry, Carrie 2, I just wasn't feeling it.

But at least the cast wasn't too bad. I especially liked Emily Bergl, who I thought was very likable in the lead role. Bergl is believable and convincing, even if I did previously question the reasoning behind Rachel's eventual snapping. I also liked the chemistry she had with Jason London, who I felt contributed a sweet, genuine performance.

Amy Irving, on the other hand, didn't contribute anything at all. Just like her subplot, Irving brought nothing to the table and the movie wouldn't be any greater or poorer had her scenes been deleted. And bringing up the rear are Dylan Bruno and Zachary Ty Bryan, who play two of the most unlikable douchebags ever captured on film. Considering how loathsome they are and are supposed to be, I guess I could say that Bruno and Bryan did the best jobs they could.

The Rage: Carrie 2 is a sequel that probably shouldn't have been made. It would have made a serviceable standalone movie, but it isn't. All we've got is a lame sequel that just wanted to piggyback on a classic. It's a failure as a sequel, and it's mediocre on its own. And you know what? If the makers of this movie had waited a decade, the movie would have probably been one of those forgotten direct-to-DVD sequels that come out all the time nowadays.

Final Rating: **

Carrie (1976)

Of all the names that have been associated with the horror genre in its various mediums over the years, few are as immediately recognizable as Stephen King. Author of some of the most memorable scary stories of all time, King has long been one of the biggest names in horror literature.

But everybody has to start somewhere, and for King, his start came in 1974 with Carrie. The first of his books to see publication, Carrie initially flew under the cultural radar. But it climbed up the best-seller chart when the cinematic adaptation of it was released in 1976. The movie was a huge success, both financially and critically. It even earned two Oscar nominations for its acting. And though parts of it are a little dated nowadays, Carrie is still a damn fine movie that I'd definitely call one of the best horror movies I've ever seen.

It's hard not to feel sorry for poor Carrie White (Sissy Spacek). The daughter of an abusive religious fanatic (Piper Laurie), Carrie's social awkwardness makes her a target for merciless teasing from her classmates. But just when Carrie thinks life can't get much worse, she gets her first period while showering after gym class. Thanks to her strict, sheltered upbringing, Carrie has no idea what's happening and believes she's bleeding to death.

Her classmates take great humor from Carrie's panicked cries for help, throwing tampons and heaping insults upon her. The scene is only broken up when Miss Collins (Betty Buckley), the gym teacher, intervenes. Feeling guilty for her part in what happened, Sue Snell (Amy Irving) tries to make amends with Carrie by convincing her boyfriend Tommy (William Katt) to take Carrie to the prom and show her a good time.

But they are unaware of the plans of Chris Hargensen (Nancy Allen), whose extreme lack of remorse for having teased Carrie gets her banned from the prom by Miss Collins. Instead of trying to apologize to Carrie, Chris instead wants revenge for being punished. She rigs the ballot to get Carrie elected prom queen, and dumps a bucket of pig blood over her head during the coronation. No one could have predicted, though, that this prank would fully trigger Carrie's burgeoning telekinetic powers, an ability that sparks a violent, bloody rampage.

It's been thirty-five years since Carrie was released, and even now it's still as good now as it was then. The movie is an amazing piece of cinema, a horror movie that others should strive to be like. It actually makes me proud to be a fan of the genre. It's an actual, legitimate work of art that I can hold up to a doubter and say, "This is why horror movies kick ass." But I could be here all day saying it's great, so let's go ahead and jump into this review, okay?

At the helm is Brian De Palma, who had previously stuck with just low-budget independent movies. Hiring him proved to be a brilliant idea, because De Palma has crafted what has to be one of the best adaptations of King's work. De Palma's direction feels evocative of Alfred Hitchcock, with the way he uses the cinematography and screeching violin music to punctuate the more tense moments. And there are many scenes where I felt De Palma was building something of a dream-like state for the movie to exist in, an almost peaceful feeling that makes the bullying and the use of Carrie's powers more nightmarish by comparison.

And he also knows how to ratchet up suspense when he needs to. Carrie's walk to the stage after she and Tommy are named the prom king and queen is so tense that it's practically unbearable. You know what will happen next, and you know that there is absolutely no way whatsoever that it will end happily. But De Palma puts the scene together in such a way that it almost gets your hopes up that it'll all go fine despite the knowledge that it won't.

De Palma's fantastic direction is made better by the fact that he has a great screenplay to work from. Written by Lawrence D. Cohen, the screenplay takes a different approach to Carrie's story than the book did. In King's novel, a good portion of the narrative was told in the fashion of magazine and newspaper articles and interviews written and conducted after the fact. Cohen eliminates that concept, instead choosing to tell the tale in a more linear fashion. And it works. It's practically flawless.

But where Cohen succeeds is his handling of the characters. The characters are what drive Carrie, and Cohen has written them beautifully. Of particular note is Carrie herself, who is a heart-wrenchingly tragic figure. You have to be utterly soulless to not feel at least a little sympathy for her. Though her life is horrible, things finally begin going her way at the end. Sure, her mom is still an abusive loon who believes her innocent daughter is evil incarnate, but Carrie has finally found the confidence to stand up to her. She goes to the prom and begins to be accepted as an equal by her classmates. Even her date appears to have a little actual romantic interest in her. But the fact that all the hope for the future that Carrie may have mustered up is dashed away by one single act of cruelty is heartbreaking.

And the absolutely brilliant casting only helps to hammer it home. As good as De Palma and Cohen's contributions to the movie are, the actors and actresses who make up the cast elevate it to something higher. The movie wouldn't have been nearly as good had they not been at the top of their game, but everyone in the movie is fantastic. The supporting cast, particularly Amy Irving and Nancy Allen, are great, but Carrie is carried by two specific performances.

One is Piper Laurie as Carrie's mother. Laurie had not appeared in a movie since Paul Newman's The Hustler in 1961, and I don't know why she didn't get any work in that fifteen-year span, because she's absolutely perfect here. She's frightening in the role, performing with a passion unlike any other actress I've ever seen. Laurie takes the repressed whackjob that is Margaret White and makes the character her own. She very much deserved that Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination she received, and she probably would have completely stolen the movie had it not been for its leading lady.

And yes, Sissy Spacek takes the movie and runs away with it. The movie probably would have all been for naught had Spacek not been so wonderful in the role. She's so good that you aren't seeing an actress playing a character, but Carrie White herself. Spacek brings the troubled young girl to life, playing her with a believable awkwardness. You can't help but feel an overwhelming level of sympathy for the character thanks to Spacek. Had any other actress been hired, or if Spacek had come even close to half-assing it, it would have ruined everything else about the movie.

And unlike a lot of other movies that use this trope, her transition from "ugly duckling to beautiful swan" is actually believable. She actually looks mousy and dowdy, as well as an ethereal beauty at the prom. A lot of movies will just slap a pair of glasses and a bad haircut on an actress before giving her a makeover, but Spacek plays it in a way that is incredibly similar to how Christopher Reeve created a dichotomy between Clark Kent and Superman. Like Laurie, her Oscar nomination for Best Actress was very much deserved. And though she won that Oscar four years later for her role as country music legend Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter, I'm still going to pick Carrie as her most outstanding performance.

The story goes that Stephen King tossed his manuscript for Carrie in the trash halfway through writing it, believing that the story would end up being awful. He only finished it when his wife fished it out of that trashcan and convinced him to keep going with it. So I guess I should owe Tabitha King a debt of gratitude, because not only did that finished novel launch her husband's career, but it allowed one of my favorite horror movies of all-time to be made. Carrie is a great movie that you absolutely need to see if you even remotely consider yourself a fan of horror movies. And remember, be nice to the misfits, okay?

Final Rating: ****½

Maximum Overdrive (1986)

Stephen King has long been considered one of the premier names in horror literature. But the movie adaptations of his books have always been hit or miss. Mostly miss, to be honest. For every one like The Shawshank Redemption, there have been five like Pet Sematary Two. There's some, though, that weren't bad, just mediocre. One was Maximum Overdrive, an adaptation of King's 1973 short story "Trucks." But while the movie is average at best, it's memorable in that it marks the one and only directorial effort by King himself.

As the movie begins, we learn that Earth passed through the tail of a rogue comet on June 19, 1987, where it would remain for just over a week. However, the negative effects of this astrological anomaly are felt almost immediately. Machines of all types — vehicles, appliances, vending machines, even things as mundane as hair dryers, toys, and Walkmen — have become sentient, all of them flying into an anti-human homicidal frenzy.

In the town of Willamette, North Carolina, a group of murderous 18-wheelers have trapped a small handful of survivors inside a roadside truck stop. When the trucks, communicating via Morse code through their horns, demand to be refueled, the humans come to the horrific realization that the machines wish to enslave them. Billy Robinson (Emilio Estevez), the truck stop's fry cook, tries rallying the survivors. Armed with a cache of weapons his boss kept hidden in the diner's basement, Billy begins formulating a plan to lead them to safety. But with the prevalence of machinery, where would they go that would be safe?

Maximum Overdrive is one of those movies that boasts an awesome concept yet leaves a lot to be desired. I don't want to call it a bad movie per se, but it's just kinda average at best. It's a movie that, if placed in the hands of a writer and director with more experience, would have been awesome.

I still can't believe that Stephen King actually made this movie. I guess he figured if people were going to do movie versions of his work, he might as well join the party and see what all the fuss was about. It's obvious that he'd never made a movie before, as his experience as both a director and a screenwriter shows. His direction isn't that bad, but it feels rough around the edges. He tends to use some of the same camera moves, angles, and techniques over and over, a repetition that gets tiring after a while. (His overuse of that really bad knockoff of the shower music from Psycho doesn't help things either.)

There are a few moments where King shows a little brilliance, though. Specifically, I mean the opening sequence on the bridge and the scene where the soda machine kills the Little League coach. Both of those scenes are awesome, King making the most of them. It's a shame the rest of the movie couldn't be like that, though.

King's script isn't much better. The short story the movie was based on was just that: short. It's roughly ten or fifteen pages long. There was no way King (or anyone else) could turn it into a feature-length movie without a ton of padding or extra material, and that's exactly what happened. The problem is that there's still not enough to carry a 97-minute running time. It just runs out of gas (no pun intended) after a certain point.

It's just really tedious. The lame characters, the stupid dialogue, the scenes that don't go anywhere; they'll just wear you out. Maximum Overdrive would have been a lot more effective as an episode of a horror anthology TV show. It's too late to change that now, but if somebody wants to resurrect Tales from the Crypt or Masters of Horror, a remake of Maximum Overdrive could make for a great episode. But for all of King's successes as a novelist, a screenwriter he is not.

And then there's the cast, which is a bit on the disappointing side. Playing the lead role is Emilio Estevez, whose performance isn't too bad. The role isn't a very strong one, and Estevez doesn't seem to be trying very hard, but at least he's watchable. That's more than I can say for some of the other people in the cast is forgettable. Only a few actors are even worth mentioning at all. One of them is the late Pat Hingle, who is wasted playing such a crummy character. What sucks about Hingle's performance is that he's clearly the wrong guy to be playing a sleazy redneck. If the writing had been a bit better, he wouldn't have been so bad.

And how about Yeardley Smith? She's most famous as the voice of Lisa Simpson, but before The Simpsons had ever been featured on The Tracey Ullman Show, she appeared in Maximum Overdrive. And I honestly wish she hadn't because Smith is terrible. She's nothing short of awful, with the most annoying voice to ever come out of anyone's mouth. Smith can't say more than one syllable without it sounding like a screeching cat, and the fact that her character spends pretty much every scene whining and complaining, it only gets worse as the movie progresses. She's right up there with Dropo from Santa Claus Conquers the Martians on my list of characters who make me want to climb into the movie and strangle them.

At least the movie has an awesome soundtrack courtesy of legendary rock band AC/DC. No less than seven of their songs appear in the movie, with their album Who Made Who serving as the movie's soundtrack. You can't go wrong with AC/DC, so if Maximum Overdrive got one thing right, it's the music.

I might sound like I'm really ripping the movie apart, but Maximum Overdrive isn't that bad. It's still an entertaining B-movie. I mean, it's a movie about a bunch of 18-wheelers that come to life and kill people, and it was directed by Stephen King, for crying out loud. The movie isn't going to be good by any means, but it's pure dumb fun. Though I'm only giving it two and a half stars, I will say that if you enjoy cheesy movies from the '80s, you could do worse than Maximum Overdrive. 

Final Rating: **½