Isn't she lovely: Sissy Spacek as the telekinetically irresistible Carrie.
Carrie--You think you had it rough in high school? Try walking in Carrie's shoes for a day. Brian DePalma's 1976 horrific drama focuses on a teenage girl, played by Sissy Spacek with a schizophrenic range of emotion, who endures all of the hardships of 12th grade while harboring her telekinetic powers. Her religious zealot of a mother (a haunting and brutal performance by Piper Laurie) condemns her for everything from smiling to getting her period, possibly enhancing Carrie's mood disorder. Though an elaborate prank at the school prom finally pushes the teenager's buttons, and all hell (literally) breaks loose.
DePalma's film sure has received a lot of criticism regarding its misogynistic undertones. Female rage is vibrantly displayed, particularly in the iconic, pig-blood scene, hinting at witch craft's implication that there is inherent evil within these female practitioners. Though he indulges himself with nearly every cinematic technique in the book (or film, one should say, with canted angles, red filters, split screens, etc.), DePalma is merely creating terror out of the least possible source--a shy teenage girl. It's not misogyny, but a reinvention of the supernatural female in a different context: high school. Spacek embodies this rage, humiliation, quietness, and misery that gets more and more compelling by scene. Laurie's performance may be one-note, but it's brilliantly terrifying and resonating--the quintessential (and paradoxical) mother-from-hell. Carrie may be scary, but it has a wit and intellect to it that puts it a few notches above other teen horrors--it knows what it's trying to accomplish, and it does. It's an effective, tongue-in-cheek critique of high school society with a female 'protagonist', whose title we question throughout.
Grade: A-
No comments:
Post a Comment