Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

I am a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino. Yes, in some circles, he is the 90's biggest cinematic kleptomaniac, but his ability to intrinsically weave and delineate multiple genres, styles and cinematic references into comprehensive and engaging tales is truly not only wonderful, but a lot of fun. Yet, despite his penchant for "thievery" or "homage" (depending on your point of view), I find that whilst Tarantino does invoke ideas (visual and plot-wise) from the films of others, he is not in the same class of "larceny" as Brian De Palma.

What Tarantino did for film homage and the implantation references in the last decade, Tarantino's idol De Palma effortlessly performed at an inconsistent rate two decades prior to much less acclaim. Certainly paying your respects and tributes to the cinematic greats is a noble deed and De Palma has been a great champion of re-introducing the works of Hitchcock, Eisenstein among others.

Yet in his adaptation of Stephen King's novel "Carrie", De Palma holds off on allusion and instead tries to create a splendidly, terrifying illusion of high school life. In doing so he establishes "Carrie" as less a film about the terrors and the power of the supernatural, but rather the cruel nature of humanity and the horrors of high school life.

The film opens up with a sequence that shows us the frail and shy Carrie (Sissy Spacek) being verbally abused during gym class for failing to hit a volleyball. We quickly learn from this scene that Carrie is not popular, talkative nor athletic and thus is the bullied loner. Yet, what follows takes the picture to another level and is one of the first flaws of the picture.

This of course is the slow motion locker room scene in which we see the school's popular female athletes cavorting and prancing in the nude in scenes reminiscent of soft pornographic films. It's not artsy, drags on too long and has no real meaning to the rest of the film, unlike the scene which immediately follows it in which Carrie alone in the nude begins her first period frightened and screaming at what is happening.

Certainly one would think that a (graduating) high school girl of her age would know these things in late 1970's America, but that is not to be the case. We soon find out that Carrie is unaware of such things because her mother is the local religious zealot, that appears more Wiccan than Christian, yet is not.

It is here that Carrie learns of her supernatural, telekinetic powers. As the popular girls tell her to "plug it up", Carrie performs her brand of telekinesis that occurs when she is frustrated and blows the lights.

She is soon sent home at the request of her teachers and excused from gym for a week in order to deal with her situation. Yet in Carrie's domestic world there is no Cosmopolitan, YM or even seemingly a box of tampons to help her in plight. In fact upon her return home, her antihuman mother (Piper Laurie) begins telling her that this event is due to sexual sin, which Carrie continually denies.

Certainly, the brand of brutal and uncompassionate Christianity or the Christian sect, Mrs. White belongs to is foreign to me, as she abuses her daughter in a manner that is certainly crueler than that which she receives at high school. Quite frankly her brand of parenting would today have social services called, but this the 1970's and like Harry Potter after her, Carrie must live out her punishment in a closet.

Yet at least Potter had some creature comforts in his cupboard under the stairs. As Carrie prays next to an almost demonic statue for spiritual and moral assistance, we begin to see the desire for peace and comfort in her life thanks to a sublime performance by Sissy Spacek.

Yet, the consistent bullying of Carrie continues despite her prayers resulting in her tormentors being chastised by the school's gym teacher Miss Collins (Betty Buckley) and punished with a threat of losing their chance to go to the senior prom.

This latest attack on Carrie however provokes a schism within the hierarchical high school caste system. Whilst crafty blonde Chris (Nancy Allen) still seethes contempt for Carrie preparing to hatch a plan to provide Carrie with the ultimate embarrassment with the assistance of her boyfriend Billy (John Travolta); her friend Sue (Amy Irving) wants to help her out by offering her a date to the prom with her lusty, blond-locked stud boyfriend Tommy (William Katt).

We can fathom what Sue has said or done to Tommy to persuade him to do such a thing, but the entire idea that Tommy would ask Carrie to the prom anyway seems ludicrous on and off-camera. The interaction between Katt, Irving and Betty Buckley is diabolically poor. The trio's conference with other comes off as one big joke in both script and delivery.

Katt performance itself is below average. While his disconnection from Carrie can be seen from the view that he is not in love with her or doesn't want to be with her at the prom, his lack of connection to everything else around him leaves us with a cold, meandering performance from an actor who appears to be bored and listless.

Yet, I found the much-hyped performance of Piper Laurie as Carrie's controlling mother to be the biggest disappointment. While her ability to emit a lack of sensitivity to her daughter, her overall performance is so over the top and outlandish that is not believable.

While her piety is supposed to be reflected in her brimstone and hell-fire attitude towards religion, her effectiveness in the role is undermined by the irrationality of her performance. We do feel Carrie's fear of her mother, but after placing Laurie's disposition within the context of a somewhat honest account of the anguish of high school life, her character becomes no longer frightening, but darkly amusing.

John Travolta fans will also be disappointed in his limited role as Chris' boyfriend Billy, the alcohol induced cardboard cut-out of "The Fonz" without any of Henry Winkler's cool or individualism. When he isn't drinking and driving or slapping Chris around (which provokes quick forgiveness of his abusive ways in order to arouse him into punishing Carrie) Travolta's character is a wasted character and role. Is Billy really necessary for Chris to enact revenge on Carrie? No. Certainly De Palma's feminist critics would conclude this is because De Palma feels Chris is too feminine and may break a nail, yet his portrayal of Carrie's ability to create her own havoc at the prom negates that theory.

Though there are many splendid characterizations within the film, most notably Sissy Spacek as Carrie. It's hard to think of anyone else- let alone Princess Leia herself Carrie Fisher-playing a character that requires an extreme level of commitment in displaying the excruciating degree of torment suffered by the high school loner. In her performance, Spacek creates a character that remarkably both frightens us and provides us with unprecedented levels of sympathy in a non-sappy way.

The performances of both Amy Irving as Sue and Betty Buckley as Mrs. Collins are also both acute representations of the power of kindness within the cruel corridors of high school.

The directorial style of Brian De Palma also offers its own gifts providing the audience with a sumptuous visual palette of nimble techniques such as split-screens, rapid close-ups, camera spins and other assets favoured by the Nouvelle Vague. Yet for all these flashy devices, de Palma's adaptation suffers from superfluous scenes and a lethargic pacing that often kills the suspense.

Despite its 97 minute running time, this film could be chopped off by at least another 10 minutes or more- most notably by shortening the after-school punishment of Carrie's tormenters and the locker-room sequence among the most criminal time-wasting scenes in this category. The entire famous "blood" scene at the prom itself is a victim of this dragging of the story and could be shortened by at least half a minute. Just as M.Night Shyamalan inadvertently showed this summer with "The Village", slow pacing does not always breed or heighten suspense, but rather boredom.

There are other things wrong in Carrie such as the abuse of students by teachers or off-kilter special effects, but De Palma certainly knows to pull the best trick of out of his hat last with a unexpected twist, yet by that time, I found I couldn't really be bothered.

Sure I did (and do) feel sorry for Carrie after 97 minutes- after all Spacek brought an unprecedented degree of realism to a sadly everyday problem of high school bullying- but despite its flashy visual trickery I didn't feel like I had seen a film worthy of its status.

Perhaps this requires multiple viewings to delve deeper beyond the rewards and gifts provided by Spacek's performance and De Palma's technique- and I will engage in at least another viewing- but this is a film that did not live up to the hype not because despite being a "classic" of the horror genre, the scare factor was low.

Au contraire mes Amis. The paranormal scares were low, yet the honest, everyday scares were terrifyingly real. Certainly within its context this would have been better as a cryptic character study that bled elements of horror into the picture. But throughout the picture this does not happen. Instead for 97 minutes De Palma fights between trying to make an artistic statement, a modern horror picture and an in-depth personal and social analysis. The forced take on paranormal behaviour and ultra-silly (almost campy) horror aspect takes over during the latter portion of the picture and throws it off kilter.

If the picture were re-shaped without any of the paranormal aspects and instead created a more realistic, yet still vicious mother and was purely driven around the quests of nihilistic popular teenagers to ruin another's life it could have worked much better. But for the most part, the picture has its rewards for the curious-minded, but despite its historical importance in bringing a greater sociological element to modern horror pictures, it fails to become the true classic it aims to be.


Recommended: No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age