A very well-made film!

Rating: 9/10 (12 October 2019)

You can see a lot of the past and the present in this movie of what's to come -- in other words, DePalma's as much an aficionado as a precedent-setter, and with this one, you get an admirable sense of pacing and so few glitches that aren't understandable it's hard not to be impressed. (Not that the smug audience I saw it with at a second-run theater recently in Portland could stop laughing as though the emotional responses at the end were "camp" or "grindhouse," but I digress!) "Carrie" is touching, moves through various modes with alacrity and assurance, serves the Stephen King novel well (with his insistence as a project of yanking horror from the "Gothic" into the suburban, modern-life settings), and introduces us to a host of new actors, all working at their best. What's really impressive is how nothing harped on, belabored or hovered over; you "get it," of course you do, and there's nothing else to do but move on. (As simple as Hitchcock cutting out "establishing shots" -- who needs to cut down the narrative momentum just to cut to a shot of the Eiffel Tower, or the Empire State Building, just to show us what city we're in? Some things seem *obvious* now ... ) A good watch, even if you weren't looking for it, particularly. If you've got two hours to spend, this'll seem like a pleasant rejuvenation.