Last night, I planned to spend yet another evening engaged in what is fast becoming my new favorite behavior-- doing just about anything that will keep those damn med school textbooks from opening up and teaching me stuff. I would have failed too, had it not been for a fair young maiden who rushed to my side and whispered a sweet proposal in my ear: LET'S GET TRASHED!! WHOO HOO!!
Er, not really. That's what I heard, not what was said. In actuality, this young sprite (hereafter referred to as Clever Girlfriend) suggested that since we had watched TV's recent incarnation of Stephen King's Carrie a few nights ago, it would be neato to rent the old (read: original) version and see just how much things have changed since 1976. Clever Girlfriend had a point. So Clever Girlfriend makes Indigent Boyfriend drive across town to the video store and give away his hard-earned dough on Carrie (1976) and Pet Cemetery. Indigent Boyfriend wants to rent a great movie called Night of the Creeps too, but Clever Girlfriend cracks the whip and stifles any further commentary.
Before I get myself into too much trouble, allow me to explain the point of this article. This not just a dual review of both movies, nor is it a summer school essay on comparison and contrast. I am attempting to delineate the main differences found between two versions of a single storyline, and in doing so pave the way for a quick analysis of our American culture and how some of it has changed in a span of 28 years. Don't worry... I won't bore you to death. If I get off on a tangent, I'll throw in some raunchy joke about a nun and a cucumber. Let's get down to business.
Until last night, I had never seen the original Carrie nor had I ever read the book. I merely knew the general story; that is, I knew it involved a schoolgirl and a whole honking buttload of blood. Or so I thought. As it turns out, the only real blood you get to see in either of the two versions appears at the beginning and at the end. The blood in the beginning is just foul-- honestly, I don't think I've ever watched a movie depicting that part of nature, and I really would prefer to be as ignorant of it as possible. My face spent the first ten minutes of each movie frozen in a horrified rictus as my brain tried desperately to make itself blind. No such luck. The scene has been seared into my mind. Man. As I struggle to cleanse my short term memory, I must indicate that the blood appearing at the end of the movies didn't come from where I thought it would either. Now that I think about it, the movie doesn't really have any blood resulting from human-on-human violence. What a crock.
Getting away from that topic, I would now like to consider the character of Carrie's mother and how each generation portrayed her. In the original movie, Ms. White is a raving deep-voiced Jesus-freak that walks around in a black cape and sells bibles door-to-door. If you so much as mutter a word that is not "Jesus-certified" she's on you like stink on shit, pounding your head with a steel cross and scattering ablutions across the room. Yeah, she's got issues. The 2002 rendition of Ms. White is of a much more restrained, ultra-religious lady. She no longer looks like Marilyn Manson portraying Little Red Riding Hood; rather, she appears to resemble the kind of wicked stepmother that would make Cinderella swoon. Occasionally she'll fly off the handle, but this time around it's with a more placid mien.
The obvious question resulting from this "change in outward behavior" is why change it? Carrie's mom was a religious freak. Why must a 2002 version depict her as more restrained? Is it because the image of a crazy lady dressed in a cape flailing bibles and calling down thunderbolts is too stereotypical? Are we hurting someone's feelings? Are we singling out a particular type of person? Must be. I guess portraying Ms. White today in the same manner as in Carrie (1976) is akin to portraying a Mexican with a long mustache and sombrero or portraying an Indian with a tomahawk and face paint. America is scared to death to piss anybody off (except the rest of the world, apparently), and it's gotten so bad now that American citizens can't even poke fun at themselves without fear of some form of retribution. I think Ms. White as an Ultra-Godite is an appropriate portrayal for any time. She's a psycho, get over it.
Something else that sticks out like a sore thumb is the substitution of "book" for "internet." In the original, Carrie goes to the library and looks up information on telekinesis (or telekeneses, as the synopsis on the back of the tape box puts it) in a book. She later tells her mother that she "looked up stuff about telekinesis in a book." In the updated version, Carrie tells her mom that she "she found out about telekinesis on the internet." Now, I don't mean to sound like an old fogey, but it just seems so WRONG to reference the internet in a movie based on a book written in a time before the internet. I know the new version of Carrie has been updated to "match the times," but can't the writers just reference a damn book? Citing the internet in a movie (ANY movie) just seems so contrived-- it's as if the movie can't possibly be hip without it. Bleh. I guess if I grew up not knowing what a book was, I'd reference the internet too. Grumble.
Next, notice how Billy Nolan (John Travolta's character) has changed. He's gone from a stupid disco-fever nancy-boy in the original to an evil "I love beating animals over the head with a sledge hammer when I'm not slapping around women, boozin' and smoking, and threatening to stab people to death for no reason" problem child in the remake. This remodeled character embodies just about everything our current culture condemns in a young man. Hmm, you think director David Carson is trying to make a statement when he ends up wrapping Nolan's SUV around the trunk of a tree like a friggin' bow tie?? That's right boys and girls, evil kids aren't cool. And they DIE. heh.
Oh yeah, and why is it that Nolan's girlfriend is trying to run over Carrie in the original version, but in the 2002 version, Nolan himself is trying to do the deed? Well, I guess I answered my own question. John Travolta was a puss.
Lastly, I would like to examine the differences in endings between the two versions. Even more so than those which I have already mentioned, I think one of the greatest disparities between Carrie (1976) and Carrie (2002)(TV) involves the ending. In the original, EVERYONE AT THE PROM DIES. I'm not kidding. Even that nice butch coach lady who liked to slap around girls gets cooked. Nevermind that she was one of the few people at that school who actually defended Carrie. DEAD. What about that nice boy that took Carrie to the prom? DEAD. What about that one girl who was genuinely sweet to Carrie? DEAD. What about all those jovial teenagers who laughed not at Carrie, but with her? DEAD. Man, this bitch was DYNAMITE! And one might be led to think this unmitigated fury would transcend the time span of 28 years and manifest itself in 2002 exactly as it was in 1976, right? Nope. Guess who gets to live in the new version. Gee, who was the only person to ever be truly supportive of Carrie? Not..... the coach! Hey, YOU can't kill HER, she's a GOOD GUY! Good guys never die! Did Director David Carson just sorta forget who wrote this story? Stephen King punishes good people for capricious reasons all the time! That's why his stories usually surprise people: They're unpredictable! You never know who's going to get the shaft.
If you're not rolling your eyes yet, the real shocker of the ending comes in the form of how Carrie and her mother interact. In the original, Carrie comes home, washes off in the tub, pleads with mama for forgiveness, and then gets a large knife in her back for her troubles. Get this: Before Margaret White can kill her daughter, Carrie makes about half a dozen steak knives fly through the air and impale her mom. Not so bad? Well, how about if those knives transfix her hands to the door frame and stab her in the abdomen so that she resembles Jesus upon the cross? Wow. I hate to get ahead of myself, but do you really think modern censors would let anyone get away with that these days? Anyway, Carrie takes dead mommy and effectively brings the house down upon both of them, ending the movie. Onto the remake. Can anyone guess how Carrie (2002) ends? Well, as already indicated, no religious symbolism. Instead, mommy tries to drown Carrie in the bathtub (obviously, Ms. White watched the 1976 version and wasn't about to become Carrie's fucking kebab). Sadly, and I must admit, shockingly, Carrie doesn't die. She ends up using her telekinesis to stop her mom's heart (apparently knives are cliche) and ends up driving to a new town with her new friend Sue. What a pile of dog crap. The producers must have paid Stephen King out the ass to allow them to butcher such a great ending, and replace it with this trash. I guess they had to leave the kids of today with a role model. Remember girls, if you're a teenage girl who has telekinesis, just go ahead and kill those who make fun of you, burn down your school, and ravage your city. It doesn't matter if you're an abomination and an unholy terror, if you're a good guy, everything will turn out A-OK. Thanks Aesop, you fuck.
Well, it's late and I'm exhausted, so I'm not going to take up any more time to summarize what I have said; rather, I'd like to explain my purpose. Typing this thing merely gave me an excuse to use a movie to express a few of my own views. Often times during the course of fabrication, I found myself really veering off toward the politics of the situation, and thus straying too far from the whole reason I made this article in the first place: Entertainment. I therefore had to delete quite a bit of prose before I published this page. Forgive me if I made it sound like this was going to be just a serious article. I was simply giving myself an opening to include any editorial belief this topic was bound to elicit. And it elicted quite a few.... more than I expected, as a matter of fact. Thus, you won't find me writing many things like this in the future. I would much rather segregate my politics from my pleasures, for they are certainly not the same thing, and I definitely enjoy the pleasures more. Hope you enjoyed reading. |
