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TV show review: CONTINUUM season 4
PHOTOGRAPHY

CARRIE (2013)

Blu-ray review by David Blackwell

 

DETAILS:  100 minutes, alternate ending, deleted and alternate scenes, two featurettes, telekinetic coffee shop featurette, audio commentary, theatrical trailer, previews, DVD, digital copy

VIDEO:  2.35:1 (Anamorphic Widescreen) 1080p High Definition

AUDIO:  English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, English 5.1 Descriptive Audio, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital

Subtitles:  English SDH, Spanish

 

STUDIO:  MGM/ Screen Gems

Theatrical RELEASE DATE: 10-18-1013

Blu-ray/ DVD RELEASE DATE:  1-14-2014

Carrie (Chloe Grace Moretz) is a shy high school student with an overbearing crazy Christian mother.  Carrie has her first period in the shower after PE class and freaks out.  She is made fun of by fellow female high school students who throw tampons at her and one even films it (and posts it on YouTube).  Soon Carrie discovers with her period has come the discovery of telekinetic powers and starts to learn about her new abilities while one of the high school students feel sorry for making fun of Carrie and wants to make up for it by asking her boyfriend to ask Carrie out to the prom.   These series of events sets the course for an explosive sequence at the prom.

 

CARRIE is basically a remake of the Brian De Palma film which is base don the Stephen King novel of the same name.  Chloe Moretz is great as the awkward and shy teen as she plays Carrie better than Sissy Spacek ever did.  The remake does take advantage of the advances in special effects since the other CARRIE was made back in the mid 1970s in addition to really fleshing out the characters with great direction given to the actors by director Kimberly Pearce.   I do wish they could have changed the ending and made it more powerful as CARRIE is ultimately a tale about how teenagers can be monsters and how the quiet ones can be pushed too far.   It touches on how the first period can be terrifying for some girls in addition to how high school has caste systems that allow cruelty.   It is even more relevant in today’s technology age with camera phones and the internet.  It isn’t a bad adaptation, but I wish Kimberly Pearce could have taken a few more risks with CARRIE despite the great performances and wonderful direction.  Instead the adaptation sometimes feels like we have seen it before except for different performances and an update for the 21st century.

 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The alternate ending is something you can only view if you select the option to watch the movie with it and the only way to switch back to the theatrical cut with the original ending is go to the Setup menu.   The ending is creepier than the theatrical ending, but I wish they could have found a way to combine the theatrical and alternate ending.

 

Nine deleted and alternate scenes with optional audio commentary by director Kimberly Pierce and a couple of scenes I wish were left in (the Chris calling Billy stupid scene and Carrie’s innocent kiss at the prom).

There are also dailies of the stuntwoman being light on fire for a sequence at the prom with optional audio commentary.

 

CREATING CARRIE- a twenty minute making-of featurette that goes into the casting, how the director incorporated cyber bullying into the script, the blood bucket tests, and how they created the visual FX.

THE POWER OF TELEKINESIS- the cast and director talk about telekinesis (whether it exists) and how the powers relate to Carrie.

TELEKINETIC COFFEE SHOP SURPRISE is one of those internet viral videos for CARRIE as actors and careful rigging of the coffee shop is used to play pranks on unsuspecting customers.

 

The audio commentary for CARRIE is by Director Kimberly Pearce as she talks about the production, story, and production challenges that were faced by the bucket of blood scene, Chloe Moretz only being allowed to work eight hours a day due to her age (15).

 

Also included on the blu-ray are the theatrical trailer and previews for other releases from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and a trailer for the ROBOCOP remake which plays before the main menu.

 

Rounding out the combo pack is the digital copy of the movie and CARRIE in standard definition on DVD.

 

FINAL ANALYSIS:

 

This review is ©1-18 -2014 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com

 

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