stylish but empty

Rating: 6/10 (27 April 1999)

DePalma is little more than a mediocre Hitchcock. He is certainly gorier than the master, but there is not much else to recommend him. Having once been a high school student, I can safely say that no one in "Carrie" acts even remotely like anyone I have ever known. Having known many religious people, I would say that even the craziest and most fanatical of them did not much resemble Carrie's mother. I did find DePalma's use of a split screen during the movies big scene to be quite interesting but even that seemed little more than a stylistic trick to enliven a rather ludicrous killing spree. De Palma is interested in shock rather than story and gore rather than character.