Movie: Carrie (2013)

I'm not holding myself to any rules about the order in which the adaptations are watched, so I jumped over the made-for-TV 2002 Carrie straight to the most recent movie. Generally I'm not a big fan a remakes. And, yes, I do know that many great movies are actually remakes that all-but-erased the legacy of their predecessors (don't take too much stock in the link; that's just an example). However, 1976 Carrie was iconic and particularly beloved by the author. In fact, Stephen King doesn't even list this movie on his official website's list of film adaptations. Since I clearly wasn't blown away by De Palma's version, I feel a little more magnanimous to the remake.

The new Carrie, directed by Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don't Cry, Stop-Loss, and that's pretty much it), is somewhat more faithful to the book, but at the same time all but lifts scenes straight from the 1976 film. For example, although filmed in and around Toronto, this version keeps the setting as Maine. Old Carrie didn't bother to disguise the fact that they were filming in California and did not tip its hand as to where it was supposed to take place. Also, the casting was far more age-appropriate in the remake, although Mr. Skin aficionados will be disappointed by the therefore far more modest locker room scene. On the other hand, some things don't change. We picked up right away on the Sue Snell shut out of the dance scene, which allowed her to witness the massacre in both films without dying herself. Also, the Carrie-versus-Mrs. White relationship remains center stage instead of Chris and Billy as it was in the book. Finally, some things were just not as good. The actor who played Tommy Ross was just no William Katt, and in general the old cast was superior if you can get over the whole adults-playing-kids issue. Also, as is deeply problematic of so many movies today, especially the remakes, it is loading with a lot of extra flashy CGI effects. Although I liked how she turns fire hoses into whips at Prom Night, much of the special effects were more spectacle than necessary, resulting in Carrie flexing her powers way more throughout the movie (even before Prom Night).

All told, this wasn't an awful film. I completely understand those who found it unnecessary, but it does remedy a few glaring flaws from the original to bring it more in line with the book. But, as with many adaptations, it just isn't going to outdo its source material. Perhaps those who have never read the book or saw the original movie will find it the most intriguing.

Movie: Carrie (1976)

Not only does Carrie have the honor of being the first Stephen King book, but also the first movie, released just two years after the book, launching a huge line of adaptions of varying quality which I have the honor (?) of exploring during this mad project. Although the movie is generally well regarded even to this day, the original Carrie, in my opinion, is nothing special, but not awful, and gave me plenty to think about.

The movie's first half seems a bit fetish-driven, something director Brian De Palma has taken flack over through his career. The girl's locker room opening scene is like something out of a teenage boy's fantasy: topless towel-fights and everyone totally at ease in their unclad skin moving around one another comfortably. Since even King's narrative was a little skittish around the locker room scene, I was able to accept it for what it was, but it was followed by an awful lot of torso-shots of the girls' gym class in action. In spite of all the goofy camp in the first half of the movie, Carrie was without a doubt sold as a "scary" movie for the time. Bear in mind this is 1976, so the cinematography, fashion, and so forth is clearly dated, as well as audience expectations of what constitutes a scary movie. I recall reading that movies like The Exorcist and Jaws had to have barf bags on hand in the theaters, and it wasn't entirely unexpected if somebody ran out the doors screaming mid-movie. So, unfortunately, when it was time to wreak havoc on the school (and Mrs. White), my jaded modern-day inclination was more toward laughter than fear. I will admit, having read the book and knowing in general what was going to happen, I tensed up a bit during the happy part of Death Prom 1979, wondering how all these poor kids were going to experience their on-screen executions. I can only imagine what somebody who hadn't read the book (or seen the poster or didn't know a thing about the story) would have reacted to the violent turn of the events.

While I watched this for the fact it was an adaptation of a Stephen King novel, one must also accept the film as a Brian De Palma creation. De Palma is an uneven director at best, and his worst movies seem to stick in my memory more than the "good" ones. Also, at this time, his name was probably carrying about the same weight as King's, seeing that 'Salem's Lot, novel #2, had only been released the prior year. Although Stephen King wasn't involved in the screenplay (or it would appear any aspect other than writing the novel it's based on), this isn't necessarily a bad thing. King has a history of throwing his support or involvement behind inferior adaptations and questionable projects and his own screenplays aren't particularly stellar. All of this considered, it is possible they could have gone off the rails and done something really different, but the changes from the book are more cosmetic than anything. For example, Sue, Tommy, and Ms. Desjardin (renamed Collins here) seem more genuinely nice to Carrie, and Mrs. White is played up as more of a heartless psychopath. The big change from the book, other than tossing out the unadaptable snippets from fake "sources", is putting the end object of Carrie's rage on her mother. In the book, scheming Chris and Billy are the ultimate baddies, and here Carrie blows them up en route back to her home without much of a second thought. Things that were off about the movie? A few choice bits include the fact that the high school kids, played by adult actors, seemed more like adults pretending they were in high school. I know that casting actual teens would have scuttled the star power of the movie, and probably put the production into questionable legal territory, but it could have been a little bit more believable. And if you really want to feel old, check out current pictures of the actors, who are all in their sixties now.

The ongoing fascination with Carrie lives on with the 2002 TV and 2013 feature film remakes, which I plan to watch. There is a 1999 sequel to this movie called The Rage: Carrie 2, which I have no intention of seeing, but feel free to tell me if I'm being close-minded. But how am I ever supposed to move on?

Finally, for any fans of the TV show The Middle, doesn't John Travolta's Billy look just a little like Charlie McDermott's Axl Heck? Maybe more than a little?

End of Watch - out today!

He's writing them as fast as I can read them! End of Watch, the third book of the Bill Hodges trilogy (Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers) comes out today. Look for my review of this book around 2021 or so. I'm still stuck in the mid-1970's!

We've got a title

Since all blog titles should either (1) rhyme, (2) alliterate, or (3) pun, the name of this blog will henceforth be called Under the Tome. Thank you to my friend Randall for the thoughtful suggestion, which was approved unanimously by the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer. Now we just need an awesome graphic for the banner. Randall also furnished us with the graphic now used on the banner!

I'm between books right now, but with no less than three film adaptations of Carrie, movie-watching is happening. Stay tuned for the reactions. Ooh, and I just noticed IFC is showing a whole bunch of Stephen King movies in a couple weeks....

Carrie (1974)

(Program note: I've been on vacation and finished this book a couple weeks ago and only now am I getting my thoughts together.)

Appropriately enough I finished the first book of this insane project just a few minutes before midnight.

The moral of Carrie is that should not be a bully because you can never be sure if the kid you're picking on has insane telekinetic powers capable of killing you, most of your friends, and burning your school to the ground. And effectively sucking the life from your hometown. In Maine. Although it's a relatively short book, it demonstrates Stephen King pouring on the fear factor right out the gates. Although King would explore other genres of popular fiction, his success with Carrie established horror as his wheelhouse, the genre he would quickly become the "master" of within a few years.

First books (and albums, too, but not so much movies) can be tricky. Often a lot of work to "get noticed", not to mention the inevitable rejects that came before, impact the delivery of a debut work. This results in the debut being substantially different than the rest of the author's oeuvre. Especially in music this can end up being a disastrous trap where no future album can ever live up to the debut, usually resulting in a very short lifespan for the band or artist's career. In other cases, usually more common with books, the debut is strong but uncharacteristic of anything else the author will write. The second book may be weaker, but it establishes the tone for most or all future works. In this particular case I think of popular mystery authors who usually write in series, like Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, and so forth.

To apply this to Stephen King is a little dicey in that this is not the first book in the adventures of Carrie White. I don't think anybody finished the book thinking "when's the sequel coming out?" On the other hand, from the little I know that lies ahead, I'm pretty sure King wasn't planning on using the structure or tone of Carrie in his future books. Carrie had a unique challenge in that King had no fan base or name recognition at this point in his career. If he had written a lame book, assuming it even made it past the publisher, this probably would have been it for his writing career. Thankfully, this was not the case, and the book opened the door for King to go more in-depth. Just for comparison, 'Salem's Lot is twice the length, and It is something like five times longer.

The book isn't perfect. In most lists attempting to rank all of Stephen King's books it usually lands in the upper part of the middle, and rarely/never makes a top 10 or 20 list. The length makes the book feel a bit lightweight, but again this goes back to "first book" issues. A lot of publishers aren't going to clear cut a forest to produce a book written by an unknown. Also, toward the end the suspension of disbelief gets harder to maintain. People somehow seem to just "know" about Carrie, even those that have never met her before. It feels like a punt, but who knows what the reasons were for some of the shortcuts. We'll explore this further with the screen adaptations yet to come, but the inclusion of fake book segments and articles may not be to everybody's taste. I thought it was particularly interesting that King would effectively insert spoilers into these bits. Anyone genuinely shocked by Carrie's rampage at the prom obviously did not read these.

Overall, I was pleased with the book and I can see why a movie would be released so quickly as well as understand how this essentially made the rest of Stephen King's career possible. I am looking forward to reading the novels ahead, many of which, unlike this one, rank very highly with the diehard fans.

In progress: Carrie

I'm trying something out here, which may not be worthwhile in the long run, but what the heck. As I read through the book, I'll post some thoughts here and update as I go. I imagine this will be fairly spoiler-intensive, so you may not want to read this if you have never read the book or seen any of the movies.

May 7 (page 10): So I started this last night, so let's call May 6 the "birthdate" of the project. So what is the first line of the first Stephen King novel ever? "News item from the Westover (Me.) weekly Enterprise, August 19, 1966:" Humble! I've been fairly shielded from Carrie, so about all I knew going in was that a girl has her period in the shower and gets tampons thrown at her. And she has superpowers. That's already happened, so let's see what happens next. Other observations: the book's main scenes take place in 1979, which would be 5 years in the future from the publication of the book. Also, key in helping pinpoint the year, are interspersed excerpts from books and articles, giving the novel a semi-epistolary structure. I did not  know this going in, but so far it's fitting enough.

May 8 (page 37): Given the gravity of some of the "secondary sources" used in the narrative, I'm pretty sure the worst is yet to come. To King's credit, none of the characters, except perhaps Carrie's mother, come off as purely good or evil. The "hyper-religious family making someone deranged" trope is a bit too familiar, but I see this as the problem of the reader in 2016 and not the author dredging up a cliche. I have to keep in mind this was published in 1974 and Stephen King was twelve years younger than I am now!

May 9 (page 87): Wrapped up Part 1 (Blood Sport) last night, right to the gory conclusion with the pigs. Between the opaque scheming of the "regular" narrative and the increasingly grim accounts of the fabricated "secondary sources" I can only assume that "Prom Night" is going to be a disaster of epic proportions. While I have yet to identify anyone as overtly good (although Carrie herself is an increasingly sympathetic figure), the number of overtly evil characters is growing.

May 10 (page 107): Everyone is going to die...they even said so!!!

May 11 (page 165): Damn, I expected that something bad was going to happen, but oh lordy. At this point just about everyone is awful, so I don't feel too shattered. In fact, it's a little thrilling, like watching those punk kids in the Final Destination movies find their dates with destiny. Sue Snell (who we know from the "sources" survives), however, has been fairly sympathetic for most of the book and even Carrie's mom, as twisted as she is, might actually have a kind bone in her body, even if it may only be a tiny ear bone.

Starting Book: Carrie

Now it gets real. Reading has commenced on Carrie. This is the version I'm reading, obviously a hardcover reprint from around 1990, but the pagination all looks like a direct lift from the original. As this is a fairly short book, I imagine a completion report will be just around the corner, and then I'll get ready for three (three!!) adaptations for the screen. Whether it is your first time with the book, returning to an old favorite, or perhaps holding your nose until we get to better books, I invite you to jump in.