Idaho State Journal
December 10, 1976
By JOE BURGGER
Journal Staff Writer
December 10, 1976
By JOE BURGGER
Journal Staff Writer
Used to be the ultimate shocker was "Psycho," Alfred Hitchcock's tidy little tale of mother love.
"Carrie" makes a pretty good try for the title and winds up close to "Psycho's" shock, with a minimum of carry-over from the Hammer Films and American-International traditions. There isn't quite the emotion, but then Brian De Palma isn't Hitchcock. On the other hand, Sissy Spacek (Carrie) is far more impressive than Janet Leigh, so the end effect is a stimulating if hardly pleasant movie.
Carrie is an odd, isolated child with a religious lunatic of a mother and an indescribably vicious peer group. She plays the part well, adding intensity to the empty woman-child of "Badlands" and carries the film through the slow spots.
Mother (Piper Laurie, who played a few second-billing dramatic roles in the mid-50s, faded, and then popped up on television recently) is sufficiently intense as the door-to-door missionary, deftly supplying the background for little Carrie's odd relations with the rest of the high school. All of us knew someone who was like Carrie—maybe ourselves—and that's why the movie works.
Camerawork is good. DePalma and his cinematographer work well at an impressionistic depiction of the classmates' attitudes, giving them individual shadings and lending credibility to the way the film develops. Maybe it's best to stop here and encourage a viewing by the devoted shock film aficionado.
Unhappily there are flaws, mostly in the second half of the film. And "Carrie" hangs together much better than De Palma's "Obsession," so his next should be a real sock in the gut. But he commits two errors. One big punch is telegraphed and the climax is fragmented by an ineffective diffused split screen. Red tinting is effective, slow motion is effective, nearstop action is effective. But the shattered lens effect visually reduces the impact when it should be magnified, and curbs the excitement when De Palma has done a reasonably workmanlike job of showing us "the McGuffin" and building suspense.
Other than that, the real show is Spacek, playing a difficult role with a frightening and thoroughly horrifying smoothness. Once the rules are drawn—an angered Carrie can shatter ashtrays, shut doors and windows from across the room and so on—Carrie becomes quite a little demon simply because of the implied threat. Yet she remains pathetic and vulnerable to the grisly very end.
"Carrie" makes a pretty good try for the title and winds up close to "Psycho's" shock, with a minimum of carry-over from the Hammer Films and American-International traditions. There isn't quite the emotion, but then Brian De Palma isn't Hitchcock. On the other hand, Sissy Spacek (Carrie) is far more impressive than Janet Leigh, so the end effect is a stimulating if hardly pleasant movie.
Carrie is an odd, isolated child with a religious lunatic of a mother and an indescribably vicious peer group. She plays the part well, adding intensity to the empty woman-child of "Badlands" and carries the film through the slow spots.
Mother (Piper Laurie, who played a few second-billing dramatic roles in the mid-50s, faded, and then popped up on television recently) is sufficiently intense as the door-to-door missionary, deftly supplying the background for little Carrie's odd relations with the rest of the high school. All of us knew someone who was like Carrie—maybe ourselves—and that's why the movie works.
Camerawork is good. DePalma and his cinematographer work well at an impressionistic depiction of the classmates' attitudes, giving them individual shadings and lending credibility to the way the film develops. Maybe it's best to stop here and encourage a viewing by the devoted shock film aficionado.
Unhappily there are flaws, mostly in the second half of the film. And "Carrie" hangs together much better than De Palma's "Obsession," so his next should be a real sock in the gut. But he commits two errors. One big punch is telegraphed and the climax is fragmented by an ineffective diffused split screen. Red tinting is effective, slow motion is effective, nearstop action is effective. But the shattered lens effect visually reduces the impact when it should be magnified, and curbs the excitement when De Palma has done a reasonably workmanlike job of showing us "the McGuffin" and building suspense.
Other than that, the real show is Spacek, playing a difficult role with a frightening and thoroughly horrifying smoothness. Once the rules are drawn—an angered Carrie can shatter ashtrays, shut doors and windows from across the room and so on—Carrie becomes quite a little demon simply because of the implied threat. Yet she remains pathetic and vulnerable to the grisly very end.
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