CARRIE

Carrie White is a teenager raised by a mother extremely devoted to religion who forbids her any pleasure in life: having fun is a sin, being a woman is a sin! Completely unaware of the normal physiological phases of the human body, Carrie one morning has her first menstrual period in the school showers and, believing she is dying, becomes the object of ridicule from her classmates. From that moment, the girl will realize that she has also developed paranormal abilities that allow her to move objects with the power of her mind. Meanwhile, the evening of the end-of-year school dance is approaching and Carrie's classmates decide to play a trick on her to humiliate her in front of the whole school, not knowing that in doing so they could unleash her destructive wrath. In 2002, a low-key television remake of the famous "Carrie - The Eye of Satan" was produced, the first cinematic adaptation by Brian De Palma of a successful novel by Stephen King. David Carson, a television director of numerous series (various episodes of "Beverly Hills 90210", "Star Trek" and "Smallville"), finds himself at the helm of this project and conducts it all with an inevitable television touch, while remaining rather faithful to King's novel. It goes without saying that no one felt the need for a remake of De Palma's already perfect film; already in the late 1990s, an attempt had been made to retell the same story in a sequel ("Carrie 2 - The Fury"), with modest commercial results but with an unsuspected qualitative success, but with this new attempt, the line of involuntary ridicule has been crossed. The main flaw of this new "Carrie" is its television nature, which makes anything spectacular that one intends to achieve somewhat unconvincing, mainly due to a annoyingly glossy photography, some flat dialogues and some actors unsuited to the roles assigned to them. On several occasions, the choice is made to follow the original novel faithfully, introducing scenes that De Palma had rightly decided not to film because, although functional on paper, they are ridiculous when filmed, such as the meteor shower caused by a young Carrie, or the death of Carrie's mother from simple cardiac arrest. In addition, there is frequent use of computer graphics that are not up to par, thus turning highly dramatic situations into simply ridiculous ones. A particular note of demerit goes to the unfortunate choice of completely changing the original ending, turning the surprising and sad conclusion that everyone knows into a laughable joke that, in an attempt to surprise the viewer, only succeeds in irritating him. The cast also turns out to be partially wrong: Angela Bettis is a decent actress, but she is too exaggerated in characterizing her Carrie White, closer to a parody of the original than to a reinterpretation; undoubtedly, Patricia Clarkson is also a good actress in the role of Carrie's mother, but she is too far from the unsettling performance that Piper Laurie had already given in the 1976 film. Totally unsuited is Tobias Mehler in the role of Tommy Ross, because he visibly shows his years to play a teenager. Despite the many flaws listed above, the film keeps the viewer engaged without ever boring them, and if for a moment we forget its illustrious predecessor, it can even entertain; but it remains a useless and unsuccessful work.