Obiter Dicta Issue 5 - October 28, 2013 | Page 14

page 14 arts and culture Carrie: worst prom ever DANIEL STYLER Staff Writer Horror movies, like all movies, fall somewhere along a spectrum. At one end, there are original and genuinely scary movies – The Exorcist, The Blair Witch Project, Halloween, Saw and, most recently, The Conjuring. At the other, there are campy, poorly acted, over-the-top “scary” movies that make you laugh as much as they make you scream – Army of Darkness, Child’s Play, The Hills Have Eyes, Slither, and Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Movies that fit into these two groups are memorable either because they are good or so-bad-that-they-are-good; whichever group you choose a movie from, though, at least you know you’ll be entertained. town, U.S.A., is bullied, seemingly by everyone. Her mother forces her into a locked closet to pray for her sins; her fellow students throw tampons at her and chant “Plug it up!” after she suffers the misfortune of having her first gym teacher slaps her in the face because of her understandably dramatic reaction to this cruel behaviour. Carrie finds solace in her telekinetic powers – she can lift her bed up all by herself! Feeling bad about the whole tampon throwing thing, The Pretty Student with a Heart asks her boyfriend, Captain America and Bro Extraordinaire, to ask Carrie to prom; he obliges. At prom, though, we all know what happens: a student, unhappy that she was banned from prom because of Unfortunately for Carrie, a remake of her role in the tampon throw1976’s film adaptation of Stephen King’s ing/YouTube incident, covers novel of the same name (his first pubnewly-minted Prom Queen lished novel), it fits into neither of these Carrie with pig’s blood with the categories. Instead, it remains in the help of her Nothing But Trouble middle, stuck in a kind of horror movie boyfriend. CHLOE GRACE MORETZ STARS AS THE TITULAR CARRIE IN purgatory; it is not thrilling, scary, wellTHE REMAKE OF BRIAN DEPALMA’S 1976 FILM. acted, funny, or over-the-top. It’s just Carrie loses her shit, substanboring. And really, that’s the worst thing tially overreacts, burns down period in the school’s shower following gym a horror movie can be. the school, and a bunch of kids end up dead. class (yes, this really happened, and a video of Carrie kills her mom and her house collapses on the whole incident was posted to YouTube by The story is well-known and not at all original. her. She dies. The End. one of the particularly bitchy students), and her Carrie White, a high-school student in AnyThere is nothing memorable about the film, outside of a few classic lines taken directly from the 1976 original. The dialogue is bland, the character development is weak, and the actors provide nothing more than the bare minimum required to generate clichéd versions of characters we have seen a thousand times: The Social Outcast, The Bitchy Girl, The Emotional Jock and Jockette, The Crazy Mom, and The Unconventional Gym Teacher. It’s all very tired and lacks any semblance of inspiration. My favourite scene from the movie is the second-to-last one. The Pretty Student with a Heart, having survived the worst prom night ever, speaks in front of a judge about Carrie’s role in the prom night massacre. She says that although Carrie had some kind of power, she was just like anyone else; she was pushed and “you can only push someone so far before they break.” Her speech acts as some sort of Extreme Public Service Announcement (EPSA) against bullying: if you bully people, you may push them too far, and you never know who you’re pushing too far. The person you are bullying may even » continued on next page © 2012–2013 Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP. All rights reserved. | 416 869 5300 monday - october 28 - 2013 Cassels Brock 2013/2014 season Obiter Dicta student ad “Doodle - Coffee” 4B Prestige, b&w the obiter dicta Contact: Heather Murray [email protected] 416 869 5782 - fax [phone] Please PRINT a hard copy of the file and either FAX it or SCAN and EMAIL it back to me, thanks!