Synopsis
Carrie White (Angela Bettis) is going through the last word in high school hell. She has nofriends, she is tormented on all sides, and she has no comfort at home, thanks to her religiousfanatic mother. Carrie also has a powerful psychokinetic talent, one that will inevitably beunleashed once the pressure builds too high. Cut down from a 180-minute mini-series to 132minutes, this version will disappoint those who wanted to see the whole thing, but at the samet…me is still far too long and slow. The original ran a brisk 98 minutes; this one doesn’t even getto the big prom blow-out until minute 105. More destruction is featured, and a minor tip of thehat goes to this version’s ambition, but the cheesy CGI mark a definite step backward from theoriginal. Angela Bettis, faced with the unenviable position of following Sissy Spacek in the titlerole, does acquit herself with a fine intensity.
Audio
The sound is in 5.1, but for all the variety and excitement in it, it might as well be 2.0. Themusic sounds fine. However, as is so often the case with TV product, it is so omnipresent thatother aspects of the soundtrack don’t have a chance to make themselves known. The soundeffects have very little surround work to do, which is most painfully obvious in the climax: theentire town is in the process of being destroyed, and the sound mix is distinctly pedestrian. Aswell, the dialogue occasionally distorts.
Video
No grain, and the blacks are okay, but the picture is very soft and drab. The colours andcontrasts liven up a bit by the time we hit the fire and explosions, but otherwise the look is verypastel, very boring.
Special Features
Trailers for Carrie, The Howling, The Fog, Jeepers Creepers,and Dead Like Me. The menu’s main page is animated and scored.
Closing Thoughts
An completely pointless exercise. Not terrible, thanks largely to Angela Bettis (andGinger Snaps fans might groove off Katharine Isabelle’s sexpot turn), but why watch thiswhen the De Palma film is right next to it on the video shelf?
Special Features List
- Trailers
