Film Review: Carrie (1976)

Release Date: November 3rd, 1976 (limited)
Directed by: Brian De Palma
Written by: Lawrence D. Cohen
Based on: Carrie by Stephen King
Music by: Pino Donaggio
Cast: Sissy Spacek, Amy Irving, William Katt, Nancy Allen, John Travolta, Betty Buckley, P.J. Soles, Piper Laurie, Priscilla Pointer, Sydney Lassick, Michael Talbott, Edie McClurg

Red Bank Films, 98 Minutes

Review:

“I should’ve killed myself when he put it in me. After the first time, before we were married, Ralph promised never again. He promised, and I believed him. But sin never dies. Sin never dies. At first, it was all right. We lived sinlessly. We slept in the same bed, but we never did it. And then, that night, I saw him looking down at me that way. We got down on our knees to pray for strength. I smelled the whiskey on his breath. Then he took me. He took me, with the stink of filthy roadhouse whiskey on his breath, and I liked it. I liked it! With all that dirty touching of his hands all over me. I should’ve given you to God when you were born, but I was weak and backsliding, and now the Devil has come home. We’ll pray.” – Margaret White

It’s been a really long time since I’ve seen Carrie and I’ve wanted to review it for awhile. Especially, since I had been working my way through Brian De Palma’s old horror and noir pictures over the last year or more.

I first saw this movie when I was about the age of the characters in the film and honestly, it gave me a really disturbed, unsettling feeling. Sure, I liked the movie but it left me feeling in a way that I found it hard to revisit for a long time. I think that had more to do with the home life of Carrie more than her school life and the bullying she encountered, daily. There was just something really evil about the relationship between her and her psycho, religious mother that made this movie kind of stomach-churning.

As an adult, I have great appreciation and admiration for how effectively Piper Laurie and Sissy Spacek’s performances are in their scenes together. I think that De Palma got the absolute best out of both actresses and despite knowing what I was getting into this time around, these scenes still punch you in the gut and make you feel genuinely uneasy and angry for Carrie, who has been nothing but a victim to all the horrible people in this story.

The rest of the film is also effective and, at times, hard to get through. Although, it still has these genuinely beautiful and sweet moments like the scenes between Sissy Spacek and William Katt at the prom before everything goes to absolute shit. Also, I think this makes things much more heartbreaking when they do go to shit.

What Carrie does to her shitty classmates is horrible but by this point in the film, it’s really hard not to feel her pain and feel like her actions are justified. It’s weirdly satisfying seeing the bullies and assholes get murdered and cooked by telekinesis and a blazing inferno. It’s also immensely satisfying seeing Nancy Allen and John Travolta have their car flipped and exploded, burning them alive. And I apologize to Nancy Allen, you are one of my all-time favorite actresses… seriously.

I think that the saddest thing about this picture, other than Carrie’s fate, is that she was possibly on the verge of having a somewhat normal life with normal friends, as William Katt’s Tommy really seemed to like her on some level and former bully, Sue (played by Amy Irving) really started to see how terrible she had been and wanted to be Carrie’s friend.

This is one of those movies where the atmosphere itself is almost its own character. The film feels stifling with this brooding, thick terror in the air. All of that is maximized by the look of Carrie’s home, as well as the way things were shot. The cinematography gives this an otherworldly look and the whole thing, especially in Carrie’s home and the scenes at the prom and the pig farm, you seem like you’re in a dream state.

I really like this movie a lot, mainly because it truly generates certain unsettling feelings in the viewer. De Palma was able to do this more effectively than the vast majority of directors that are considered horror legends.

At the same time, this makes Carrie a movie I don’t want to revisit often because it has that effect. And honestly, it’s not something that diminished with time or repeated viewings, which just solidifies the greatness of the picture.

Rating: 9/10

Film Review: Return to Oz (1985)

Also known as: Oz, The Adventures of the Devil In the Sky (working titles)
Release Date: June 21st, 1985
Directed by: Walter Murch
Written by: Gill Dennis, Walter Murch
Based on: Oz books by L. Frank Baum
Music by: David Shire
Cast: Fairuza Balk, Nicol Williamson, Jean Marsh, Piper Laurie, Deep Roy

BMI (No. 9) Ltd., Oz Productions Ltd., Silver Screen Partners II, Walt Disney Pictures, Buena Vista Distribution, 113 Minutes, 110 Minutes (“uncut”), 109 Minutes (cut)

Review:

“I have always valued my lifelessness.” – Tik-Tok

I saw this in the theater when it came out. I’m not sure how this was a kid’s movie because it scared the shit out of me. Granted, it scared the shit out of me in that really cool way that made me re-watch the film again and again once I copied it onto my own VHS after renting it. Yes, I was a bootlegger creating my own entertainment library at six years-old.

Anyway, usually things that I found scary as a kid aren’t scary in adulthood. However, the two key creepy scenes in this film still hold up and are actually still effectively creepy. In a time when kids are much bigger pussies than my generation, this movie would wreck six year-olds’ brains.

The two scenes I’m talking about are the introduction of the evil Wheelers and the hall of severed heads, especially when their headless host awakes and the heads all come to life in their glass display cases.

In fact, that latter scene is pretty over the top and kind of a mindfuck even though I know it’s coming and honestly, that’s incredibly rare for a movie rated PG.

Moving beyond those two moments, the film itself is still pretty damn dark. I mean, any film that starts with a child being locked up in an asylum and about to receive electroshock therapy is quite unsettling.

Unfortunately, despite a few moments with some imagination and potential, the picture as a whole is kind of drab and definitely fifteen or so minutes too long.

The whole third act is really drawn out.

Once Dorothy and her friends get to the Nome King’s mountain, things screech to a halt. It’s not that this portion of the film is uninteresting, it’s just dragged out to an ungodly length and moves at a snail’s pace.

I still really enjoy the flick as a whole and it’s worth a watch for fans of L. Frank Baum’s Oz stories. However, it lacks energy in most places and getting from one sequence to the next can be like waiting for an elderly turtle to pull his dangling balls across a pool of molasses.

Rating: 6.75/10
Pairs well with: other Oz films, as well as ’80s family fantasy movies.

Film Review: The Faculty (1998)

Also known as: The Parasite (Japanese English title)
Release Date: December 25th, 1998
Directed by: Robert Rodriguez
Written by: Kevin Williamson, David Wechter, Bruce Kimmel
Music by: Marco Beltrami
Cast: Elijah Wood, Jordana Brewster, Shawn Hatosy, Clea DuVall, Josh Hartnett, Laura Harris, Robert Patrick, Bebe Neuwirth, Piper Laurie, Famke Janssen, Usher Raymond, Salma Hayek, Jon Stewart, Danny Masterson, Louis Black, Duane Martin, Daniel von Bargen

Dimension Films, Los Hooligans Productions, Miramax Films, 104 Minutes

Review:

“I’m not putting that hack drug up my nose – it’s so eighties!” – Stokely, “Aliens are taking over the earth. Weigh it!” – Zeke

I thought I had seen this film before and maybe I did but watching it now, it was all new to me. Granted, at the time when this was a current movie, I was dabbling in extracurricular substances. Angsty Gen-X teen shenanigans, am I right?

And I guess this film isn’t too different from my head space in the era in which this came out. I was dabbling in the party hard lifestyle and all it had to offer like most of the kids in this movie.

Anyway, this film had everyone in it. Seriously, this cast was loaded with talent to the point that it is pretty unbelievable when watching it today. In fact, I’m surprised this wasn’t a hit or didn’t get a much larger cult following. It kind of came and went but it also came out in a time when there were a lot of films like it.

I also didn’t know that this was a Robert Rodriguez film. But when this came out, I wouldn’t have really known who he was yet even though I had seen From Dusk Till Dawn and Desperado.

The story is pretty simple, an alien parasite is taking over the minds of people. Basically, it borrows heavily from Invasion of the Body Snatchers and a lot of other similar stories. This takes place in a high school though and the aliens have pretty much taken control of most of the faculty and a lot of the students. As the film rolls on, a group of teens discovers what’s happening and they decide to stop the invasion.

This was a much better movie than I anticipated when I fired it up nearly twenty years after its release. I was surprised with how fun and nuts it was. There are some parts that don’t make a lot of sense, like the whole opening scene if you reflect on it after watching the rest of the movie. However, Robert Rodriguez gave it a certain spirit that made me think of one of his other films: Planet Terror. Now this wasn’t Planet Terror levels of insane but it was edgier and cooler than other films like it from the late ’90s.

This also had some really impressive special effects and visuals. The scene where the alien queen, in human form, is walking naked through the locker rooms and the shadows of her invisible intertwining tentacles cast shadows all over the room is so fucking cool. Seriously, I loved this moment in the film and it really legitimized the picture as something much better than its contemporaries.

The Faculty is a greater film than it needed to be and that is the mark of a great director. I feel like it was certainly held tightly under the studio thumb and that Rodriguez would have made something pretty insane if he made this later in his career but he was still able to put his unique stamp on it and turn out a film that was damn good.

The film also features the worst Josh Hartnett hairstyle ever captured on film.

Rating: 7.75/10
Pairs well with: Disturbing Behavior, Teaching Mrs. Tingle, Urban Legend, Idle Hands and other late ’90s teen horror.