MOVIE REVIEWS Carrie (1976)

• Directed by Brian De Palma
• complete credits: see IMDb entry

• Review

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Wanna-Be Hitchcock, Partly

Rating: 7 of 10        

Brian De Palma is often being compared to Alfred Hitchcock, a comparison which can be interpreted in two ways. On the one hand, it can be understood as an hommage, a positive judging of de Palma's ability to create suspense. On the other hand, however, it could also be understood as mimicking and plagiarizing, and also as a lack of own ideas. 'Carrie' seems to be a mix of these alternatives.

I cannot judge the film in connection with Stephen King's story, which I have not read. That may not be a bad thing as it allows me to judge the movie as a self-sustaining entity, which it is. The story and development of Carrie is portrayed somewhat believably, taken the assumed existence of the shown paranormal phenomena for granted, and the audience can very well relate to her pain and feel sorry for her fate. The portrayal of the mother, on the other hand, is nothing but ennoying and ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, Piper Laurie does a great job in acting, it is rather her role which is unsatisfying, implausible even more. This is the stereotypical religious fanatic, but somehow it doesn't seem to fit, it seems too convential a concept, maybe because it has been used so often. But granting that 'Carrie' predates most post-modern horror movies, the conventionality may have originated precisely from this story and others like it. That doesn't make it any better or any more plausible, but it at least defends the use of the motif in it.

Another annoying thing is the misuse of the musical motif from the shower scene from 'Psycho'. This is too obvious and unworthy of an otherwise good approach, but it puts this into the plagiarizing faction. What is rather unlike Hitchcock, is the graphical portrayal of violence in it. The climax of the movie and its gore factor are something definitly non-Hitchcockian, as Hitchcock was not only a master of suspense but much more a master of understatement and decency. De Palma uses this method, too, in the first parts of the film, making it seem a bit boring even, but also underlaying it with a certain unnerving feeling of something which is yet to come.

The ending is giving the movie another spin, which could be good if it weren't for the fact that de Palma did a similar thing in his later movie 'Dressed to Kill' (1980). This makes the end of 'Carrie' seem contrived and deliberate, which is perhaps a good way to describe the entire experience of this film. Everything feels clean, deliberately and meticulously planned, yet without spirit and heart, without soul and without the madness and haze a true horror film should lay bare. This is artificiality at its best, still producing a suspenseful thriller, but also revealing its artificial core.

De Palma fails to create a genuine horror experience. What he does is to deliberately use convential elements, put them in the right order to achieve a pre-calculated effect, using a bit more blood than necessary to make it outrageous enough to let it seem unconventional, and to provide it with an ending which could have been unnerving if it weren't for the cleanness of planning involved. There is no experimenting, no true originality in it. It is just a job well done. That would bee too little if 'Carrie' would be a movie of the nineties, but as a movie of the seventies, it may very well be considered a milestone, despite its weaknesses. If there is something like a prototypical mixed bag, here you have it.

September 20th, 2000