Carrie remake is out and is basically a remake of the 1970s film and not a retelling of the book (despite the claims)… and this begs the question of whether the original film needs to be remade. I say sure, that movie is really good but its aggressively 1970s and maybe it doesn’t age well for people who didn’t see it back in the day (or at least in the 80s).

This remake is fine, acceptable, and passable and managed to be a little less melodramatic – the characters feel more fleshed out and act more naturally.

Unfortunately, they sabotage themselves by making Carrie far more in control of her powers than she should be which makes the prom scene kind of fail. That scene is supposed to be a psychotic break where she’s only partly aware of what she’s doing… in this one she just seems to be outright murdering fools, most of whom did nothing wrong… which takes her from tragic victim into the villain (and makes her mom kind of right).

So some bad decisions and uninspired film making do a major disservice to this movie. Its not terrible and newcomers to the story will probably be ok with it… everyone else will know this has all been done better before.

Score: 74