4 gibbles out of 5

Director: Brian de Palma

I’ll admit to not seeing a lot of Brian De Palma films. For the most part, I’ve been entertained but not impressed, and Carrie almost changed my opinion. Almost.

Carrie is a Stephen King tale, meaning it takes a basic premise and adds that dash of fantasy or horror. In this case it’s horror added to a “girl that gets picked on exacts revenge” kind of thing. Having not read the book I cannot speak to the balance of plot-points therein, but I was impressed with the evenness applied to the set-up of the beginning and glimpses of Carrie’s life. There are opportunities to go overboard with criticisms of religion, or school hierarchy, and while John Travolta’s doofus character comes close to being too much of a parody, the balance is still kept and everyone gets a few social commentary jabs while maintaining a fairness that one often doesn’t see in movies of this type.

And frankly, the beginning of the movie is amazing. This is what made me want to change my mind about De Palma, for how patiently and intelligently it was all displayed, to the point of the scenes of Carrie’s disbelief at the care she’s receiving being truly touching.

And then De Palma comes back to form for the final big classic scene. Meaning that it all gets a bit too goofy and stylistic for the sake of being stylistic, and it ruins whatever suspense had been building. Thankfully, it almost works because of how insane the scene is, and keeps the movie from sinking below four stars. Kill me for saying this, but the only De Palma movie that I felt was solid from beginning to end was Snake Eyes, because it’s a goofy movie with a goofy lead and matches the director’s camp style. I’ll get back to you after I’ve seen Blow Out and Obsession as to whether or not that statement still stands.