Wasted potential

Rating: 5/10 (23 September 2011)

When one of the most overrated directors in Hollywood adapts the most overrated author in America, the predictable result is an incredibly overrated movie, which is indeed what Carrie is. It's not a bad movie exactly - it has a lot of style and a few interesting ideas - but those get lost in a very messy haze. De Palma boldly tries to mix high-school drama with horror and mystery, but in the end all aspects fall flat, and as is often the case with Stephen King stories, the supernatural element is the dullest one in the whole movie. Sissy Spacek's performance is memorable enough to make a very flat and undeveloped character work, somehow; the best performance in the movie, though, is that of Piper Laurie as Carrie's mother, and it's completely wasted, as is anything good that De Palma has here.