Pacific Stars and Stripes
April 3, 1977
By JIM LEA
April 3, 1977
By JIM LEA
TOKYO (S&S) — Sometimes Hollywood goes a little too far. In "Carrie," that amounted to about 90 seconds. . . the time it took director Brian DePalma or United Artists — or both — to blow a completely beautiful movie.
Japanese television commercials for a month or more had made it appear the flick would be something that would turn "Rosemary's Baby" into Minnie Mouse, exorcise "The Exorcist" and shove "The Omen" and "The Premonition" into the Walt Disney class.
One phrase in the commercials brought a groan from me: "The first in United Artists' parapsycho series!"
Lord! I thought. A whole series!
Parapsychology gives a dozen or more subjects to work with . . . and I could care less about anything that contains the letters "psych" in that sequence because I'm a firm believer that nobody knows enough about the human mind to even begin to talk about it — Freud probably knew about enough of what there is to know (not counting what we don't know there is to know) to fill the head of a pin.
But, the TV commercials did their job — which means I'm as swayed as anyone else by a few of those "psych" words. I went to see it ... and immediately strengthened my resolve not to pay attention to another TV commercial.
The movie wasn't bad. In fact, it was pretty good. But there was nothing chilling or heart-stopping in the first couple of hours. There was terror — the kind human beings foist upon each other in just being average, run-of-the-mill human beings.
And there's plenty of acting, which isn't the case in a great many movies. Sissy Spacek — who somebody fortunately discovered in a wide spot called Quitman on Texas State Highway 154 east of Dallas — was terrific. John Travolta, Amy Irving, William Katt, Nancy Allen and Betty Buckley also lend dignity to the film and the profession.
The really remarkable acting job was turned in by Piper Laurie, who debuted in films the year Miss Spacek was born and hasn't done a damned thing until now worth mentioning. In "Carrie," she was magnificent.
Both the special effects and camera work were superb and the dialogue writers gave the actors and actresses lines that made them sound like real people.
Carrie (Miss Spacek) is a Class A wallflower, made that way by her religious nut mother (Miss Laurie) to whom everything but everything is sin and who keeps her daughter shut away in a closet, praying to a fire-eyed crucifix for salvation.
Not at all sin-possessed, Carrie finds she is possessed of telekineses, the power to move things by concentration. When she begins her first menstrual period (during a shower following a particularly uncoordinated showing) following a high school PE class volleyball game, she — as more young women do than the average guy would believe — believes she's dying; leading to some exceedingly low-life abuse from her gym-mates.
As punishment, the gym teacher (Miss Buckley) puts the offenders on a strict regime of calesthenics. One (Miss Allen) balks and is banned from attending the senior prom. To get even with Carrie, she uses a bit of sexual coercion to talk her not-too-bright boyfriend (Travolta) into killing a pig and tapping it for a bucket of blood.
Miss Irving, however, feels sorry for the part she played in Carrie's humiliation and has her boyfriend (Katt) — the star jock and most popular boy in school — take Carrie to the prom to give her a shard of the high school happiness she's missed.
A bit of makeup transforms Carrie into a genuine beauty and she and Katt are elected king and queen of the ball — a feat engineered by Miss Allen.
As Carrie is crowned, nurd and company douse her with pig's blood, the bucket falls on Katt's head, killing him, and Carrie flips out, putting a telekinesis doublewhammy on the festivities that wipes out both faculty and studentbody.
She heads — still blood-covered —" for the only place she has left, home and sermon-spouting mom . . . who's waiting to get the sin out of her for good with a fair-sized butcher knife. In desperation, Carrie does mom in, too, and her mental gymnastics go completely berserk, blowing up the house, herself, mom and all.
If the movie had ended there, it would have been a magnificent film. Up to then the human situations were appallingly believable and the audience was solidly on Carrie's side, even though her getting-even method was a bit far out. It was acceptable. But it didn't.
There's another minute and a half of totally unnecessary footage which seemed to have been tacked on for one — maybe both — of two unacceptable reasons: Pure commercialism or to lay the groundwork for a sequel. It was the only shock in the movie — a shock which, as far as I'm concerned, changed DePalma's ART to, simply, art.
The movie had a message, and those things usually turn me off completely because most of the time there's so much overacting just to get the message across that the films become tedious. "Carrie's" message was woven deftly enough into the story to get it across quietly — the propensity all human beings have for seizing inhumanly upon the flaws we find in others to cover the flaws we find in ourselves.
Everybody does it at one time or another in life. My folks tried to teach me not to do it as theirs tried to teach them and I try to teach my kids. But nobody ever seems to learn until they become the butt of the abuse themselves.
"Carrie" is rated R, but I'd take my kids to see it for that lesson. Maybe if they'd watch how simply horrible people can be, it'll help them learn to avoid that pitfall in living.
Japanese television commercials for a month or more had made it appear the flick would be something that would turn "Rosemary's Baby" into Minnie Mouse, exorcise "The Exorcist" and shove "The Omen" and "The Premonition" into the Walt Disney class.
One phrase in the commercials brought a groan from me: "The first in United Artists' parapsycho series!"
Lord! I thought. A whole series!
Parapsychology gives a dozen or more subjects to work with . . . and I could care less about anything that contains the letters "psych" in that sequence because I'm a firm believer that nobody knows enough about the human mind to even begin to talk about it — Freud probably knew about enough of what there is to know (not counting what we don't know there is to know) to fill the head of a pin.
But, the TV commercials did their job — which means I'm as swayed as anyone else by a few of those "psych" words. I went to see it ... and immediately strengthened my resolve not to pay attention to another TV commercial.
The movie wasn't bad. In fact, it was pretty good. But there was nothing chilling or heart-stopping in the first couple of hours. There was terror — the kind human beings foist upon each other in just being average, run-of-the-mill human beings.
And there's plenty of acting, which isn't the case in a great many movies. Sissy Spacek — who somebody fortunately discovered in a wide spot called Quitman on Texas State Highway 154 east of Dallas — was terrific. John Travolta, Amy Irving, William Katt, Nancy Allen and Betty Buckley also lend dignity to the film and the profession.
The really remarkable acting job was turned in by Piper Laurie, who debuted in films the year Miss Spacek was born and hasn't done a damned thing until now worth mentioning. In "Carrie," she was magnificent.
Both the special effects and camera work were superb and the dialogue writers gave the actors and actresses lines that made them sound like real people.
Carrie (Miss Spacek) is a Class A wallflower, made that way by her religious nut mother (Miss Laurie) to whom everything but everything is sin and who keeps her daughter shut away in a closet, praying to a fire-eyed crucifix for salvation.
Not at all sin-possessed, Carrie finds she is possessed of telekineses, the power to move things by concentration. When she begins her first menstrual period (during a shower following a particularly uncoordinated showing) following a high school PE class volleyball game, she — as more young women do than the average guy would believe — believes she's dying; leading to some exceedingly low-life abuse from her gym-mates.
As punishment, the gym teacher (Miss Buckley) puts the offenders on a strict regime of calesthenics. One (Miss Allen) balks and is banned from attending the senior prom. To get even with Carrie, she uses a bit of sexual coercion to talk her not-too-bright boyfriend (Travolta) into killing a pig and tapping it for a bucket of blood.
Miss Irving, however, feels sorry for the part she played in Carrie's humiliation and has her boyfriend (Katt) — the star jock and most popular boy in school — take Carrie to the prom to give her a shard of the high school happiness she's missed.
A bit of makeup transforms Carrie into a genuine beauty and she and Katt are elected king and queen of the ball — a feat engineered by Miss Allen.
As Carrie is crowned, nurd and company douse her with pig's blood, the bucket falls on Katt's head, killing him, and Carrie flips out, putting a telekinesis doublewhammy on the festivities that wipes out both faculty and studentbody.
She heads — still blood-covered —" for the only place she has left, home and sermon-spouting mom . . . who's waiting to get the sin out of her for good with a fair-sized butcher knife. In desperation, Carrie does mom in, too, and her mental gymnastics go completely berserk, blowing up the house, herself, mom and all.
If the movie had ended there, it would have been a magnificent film. Up to then the human situations were appallingly believable and the audience was solidly on Carrie's side, even though her getting-even method was a bit far out. It was acceptable. But it didn't.
There's another minute and a half of totally unnecessary footage which seemed to have been tacked on for one — maybe both — of two unacceptable reasons: Pure commercialism or to lay the groundwork for a sequel. It was the only shock in the movie — a shock which, as far as I'm concerned, changed DePalma's ART to, simply, art.
The movie had a message, and those things usually turn me off completely because most of the time there's so much overacting just to get the message across that the films become tedious. "Carrie's" message was woven deftly enough into the story to get it across quietly — the propensity all human beings have for seizing inhumanly upon the flaws we find in others to cover the flaws we find in ourselves.
Everybody does it at one time or another in life. My folks tried to teach me not to do it as theirs tried to teach them and I try to teach my kids. But nobody ever seems to learn until they become the butt of the abuse themselves.
"Carrie" is rated R, but I'd take my kids to see it for that lesson. Maybe if they'd watch how simply horrible people can be, it'll help them learn to avoid that pitfall in living.
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