Lubbock Avalanche Journal
December 12, 1976
By WILLIAM D. KERNS
Fine Arts Editor
December 12, 1976
By WILLIAM D. KERNS
Fine Arts Editor
If critic John Brosnan is to be believed, there are two extreme schools of thought on the horror movie. The first imagines the genre as a sea where the wrecks of actors and directors collect when they can no longer stay afloat in the mainstream, and where the films are little more than pulp for the bloodthirsty mental defectives. The second, and vastly more artistic school sees each individual horror film as a maligned masterwork which goes beyond fantasy to trace our deepest fears and tensions. Such talk has been plentiful in the wake of such as "The Other," "The Exorcist," "The Omen" and that other bit of horror, "Jaws."
But here comes director Brian De Palma who, by giving us a repressed teenager at last delivering fiery apocalypse upon her tormentors (she wipes out the senior class) and a group of predatory adolescents which are as over-vicious as the Room 222 crowd was over-sweet, tries to rock the boat. He tries to create a new category, a new look at horror and the result is "Carrie" — a film which can't exceed the boundaries of farce, much less fantasy, a picture too stupid to mistake for reality and thus too fake to fear.
He offers us cheap thrills and even manages to toss in a nonsensical "Deliverance" type ending which sees everyone jump three feet in their seats before giggling at their own foolishness. But he never masters control of our nerve endings. And the biggest tragedy of all is that he completely wastes a very good performance by talented Tecas actress Sissy Spacek in the title role.
Spacek is perfectly cast as Carrie. She has the withdrawn, plain-Jane turned Cinderella look the script calls for and she is well capable of serving up a full, well-drawn portrait of a sensitive, vulnerable girl who's been shut up too long like some holy mole in her mad mother's prayer closet, and who must break away from that and the awful (though too exaggerated to be believable) indignities she suffers at the hands of her classmates through the only gift she's got.
The gift is the power of telekinesis and with 90 minutes practice time Carrie works her way up from popping light bulbs and flipping ashtrays all the way up to willing kitchen utensils to fly across the room and causing fire hoses to go harmfully berserk. Look ma, no hands. The resulting effects are sometimes brilliant, but you can still smell this stinker of a movie clear out at the concession stand.
Mind you, there are good parts. Spacek is a treat, William Katt (as super jock Tommy Ross) is quite funny thanks to a grab bag of facial expressions and Pino Donnoggio's music succeeds both as a mood device and lovely listening.
But the script, the teenagers, the camera work, the dialogue: all are about as believable as the New York Jets in the Super Bowl. The movie may have been sunk from the first, however, since Stephen King's novel had to be the most boring bestseller of all time and screenwriter Larry Cohen has managed to save all those great bits of dialogue like "Pimples are the Lord's way of chastising people."
On top of this we have such realistic inclusions as girls wearing their baseball hats to the prom, principals refusing to call students by their given names even when corrected, teachers ridiculing students in class, another bout with revolving cameras (De Palma grew enraptured with this gimmick in "Obsession"), an amateurish use of split screen and (ho hum) slow motion, and a director who merely wants a blood-spattered Spacek to act as bookends for his plot.
Another regrettable factor is Piper Laurie as the mad mom, coming back to the movies after a 15-year hiatus to offer a cardboard caricature of fanaticism, complete with such screeching excesses as modeling a half dozen kitchen knives and still taking longer than John Wayne to die.
This high school horror is both a waste of financing and a waste of talent and perhaps an indication that De Palma, so full of promise after "Phantom Of The Paradise," is satisfied cast in the role of the bogey man who uses calculated trickery to tucker naive audiences into thinking original trash just might really be original entertainment. He should know better.
But here comes director Brian De Palma who, by giving us a repressed teenager at last delivering fiery apocalypse upon her tormentors (she wipes out the senior class) and a group of predatory adolescents which are as over-vicious as the Room 222 crowd was over-sweet, tries to rock the boat. He tries to create a new category, a new look at horror and the result is "Carrie" — a film which can't exceed the boundaries of farce, much less fantasy, a picture too stupid to mistake for reality and thus too fake to fear.
He offers us cheap thrills and even manages to toss in a nonsensical "Deliverance" type ending which sees everyone jump three feet in their seats before giggling at their own foolishness. But he never masters control of our nerve endings. And the biggest tragedy of all is that he completely wastes a very good performance by talented Tecas actress Sissy Spacek in the title role.
Spacek is perfectly cast as Carrie. She has the withdrawn, plain-Jane turned Cinderella look the script calls for and she is well capable of serving up a full, well-drawn portrait of a sensitive, vulnerable girl who's been shut up too long like some holy mole in her mad mother's prayer closet, and who must break away from that and the awful (though too exaggerated to be believable) indignities she suffers at the hands of her classmates through the only gift she's got.
The gift is the power of telekinesis and with 90 minutes practice time Carrie works her way up from popping light bulbs and flipping ashtrays all the way up to willing kitchen utensils to fly across the room and causing fire hoses to go harmfully berserk. Look ma, no hands. The resulting effects are sometimes brilliant, but you can still smell this stinker of a movie clear out at the concession stand.
Mind you, there are good parts. Spacek is a treat, William Katt (as super jock Tommy Ross) is quite funny thanks to a grab bag of facial expressions and Pino Donnoggio's music succeeds both as a mood device and lovely listening.
But the script, the teenagers, the camera work, the dialogue: all are about as believable as the New York Jets in the Super Bowl. The movie may have been sunk from the first, however, since Stephen King's novel had to be the most boring bestseller of all time and screenwriter Larry Cohen has managed to save all those great bits of dialogue like "Pimples are the Lord's way of chastising people."
On top of this we have such realistic inclusions as girls wearing their baseball hats to the prom, principals refusing to call students by their given names even when corrected, teachers ridiculing students in class, another bout with revolving cameras (De Palma grew enraptured with this gimmick in "Obsession"), an amateurish use of split screen and (ho hum) slow motion, and a director who merely wants a blood-spattered Spacek to act as bookends for his plot.
Another regrettable factor is Piper Laurie as the mad mom, coming back to the movies after a 15-year hiatus to offer a cardboard caricature of fanaticism, complete with such screeching excesses as modeling a half dozen kitchen knives and still taking longer than John Wayne to die.
This high school horror is both a waste of financing and a waste of talent and perhaps an indication that De Palma, so full of promise after "Phantom Of The Paradise," is satisfied cast in the role of the bogey man who uses calculated trickery to tucker naive audiences into thinking original trash just might really be original entertainment. He should know better.
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