Vicious and Relentless

Rating: 7/10 (22 October 2016)

With the utmost respect, Carrie seems very much like an exploitation film of the slasher/revenge genre. In another one of the many films that was undoubtedly inspired by Hitchcock's Psycho, a teenager decides to unload her unusual powers on a bunch of unfortunately sour members of her school.
One of my problems with many horror films is the loss of grounded characters who are easy to root for. I feel like many films in this genre focus too heavily on the antagonistic presences in the films that they forget to build out likable and realistic main characters. Carrie doesn't necessarily suffer from that particular problem, but it chooses to surround Carrie, a bullied and reserved girl, with stereotypical one-note characters. Sometimes it works, but I will always desire characters with understandable motivations.
So even though there is basically no one likable in the story, Carrie succeeds in that it's an important tale of the damage that bullying can do and the lengths that the victim could go to get revenge. With a limited budget, due to it being the first adaptation of Stephen King's work, Brian De Palma does more with less. And even though you pretty much know what's going to happen, the execution is nonetheless very effective. Sissy Spacek kills it, as she did a whole lot in the 70's and 80's. She's complemented by an equally creepily eerie turn by Piper Laurie, who plays her mother. Yikes. Yes, It's definitely dated, but Carrie is a fun product of its time, and a story/message that should be remembered.
+Bloody/fiery fun
+Exploitive in the best ways
-A few too many unlikable characters
7.1/10