Review of Carrie (1976) by Amheretojudge — 03 Sep 2019

It is a short, short tale about big people, heavy message and huge caliber of cast passing on the envelope.

Carrie De Palma fascinates me. I love his fascination over the slow motion shots. For it is easily the most difficult thing to ownIt is a short, short tale about big people, heavy message and huge caliber of cast passing on the envelope.

Carrie.

De Palma fascinates me. I love his fascination over the slow motion shots. For it is easily the most difficult thing to own and it is also the cheesiest cinematic experience you can offer to the audience. Many have come and gone and very few have managed to walk that very fine line. And I think the director Brian De Palma is up there, along with Quentin Tarantino whose old style filmmaking brings it out in him. Take Once Upon A Time In Hollywood or Kill Bill or Django Unchained. Compared to him, De Palma's decision is safer.

If Tarantino is just celebrating, gloating, bragging in these shots with volume of his favorite song turned to maximum, De Palma is actually passing meticulous information, justifying his choice and keeping us engage with a spooky background score that takes over the audio. And I feel that just like The Untouchables and Scarface, the entire runtime- it is incredibly short and swift- is building towards the final slow motion showdown. And IT WORKS. You are with him throughout that sequence, biting nails, widening your eyes and shortening your breathe, it is a beautiful experience.

Now, this also brings up the performance. The choreography, production and all the set pieces ought to be in sync when things are going slow, but the first and foremost priority is the performance. You have to have the best team to pull off this heist and he has got Sissy Spacek bringing this iconic role alive on screen. Flamboyantly rigid in her body language and her facial expression, she is surprisingly pulling this film up to a whole new level. For despite of Stephen King being the source, horror being the genre and tragedy being the case, never for a moment I felt uneasiness or physically distant with Carrie.