Review of Carrie: Special Edition

Introduction

Carrie is now 25 years old and has been re-released as a 25th Anniversary Special Edition, complete with two new documentaries and numerous other features.

The movie, based on Stephen King`s book, tells the story of Carrie, a loner, picked on by her classmates at school, brainwashed and tortured by her mother at home and who doesn`t understand the process of growing from a girl into a woman. After an incident at school, Carrie becomes even more unpopular with her classmates, and they plot to teach her a lesson, but they didn`t realise that the object of their attention is a very special girl, with the power of telekinesis, and eventually they push her too hard.

Video

The video is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen and is of a reasonable standard. The film is now 25 years old, and many horror movies from the mid-late seventies haven`t aged too well, but the image has been cleaned up and is quite crisp and detailed.

The picture does suffer from a little grain and dirt, with a couple of scenes in particular displaying very noticeable visual blemishes - one has a vertical white line from the top to the bottom of the screen, the other has a bright white dot on the image.

The film is very well made and well shot, although it doesn`t contain any especially exciting visuals until the end sequence, which still looks quite good all these years on.

Audio

The soundtrack has been remixed into Dolby Digital 5.1, although the sound predominantly emanates from the front channels, with the rear only kicking into life for the "horror movie strings" sound effect when Carrie uses her powers and during the ending sequence.

The dialogue is always clear and understandable, apart from one scene in a clothes shop, where the speech speeds up so about 10x normal speed for a few seconds. Hopefully this is unique to my review pressing and has been sorted out on retail copies.

Features

Extras consist of the documentaries "Acting Carrie" and "Visualising Carrie", a featurette "Singing Carrie", "Stephen King and the Evolution of Carrie Essays", Animated Stills Gallery and Original Theatrical Trailer.

The two documentaries both run for just under three quarters of an hour and are excellent - amongst the most watchable and interesting that`s I`ve seen on DVD. The first one, "Acting Carrie" looks at the casting of the movie and then goes onto the challenges involved in acting out the various scenes. This documentary features interviews with the director, cast members and numerous filmmakers. The second documentary, "Visualising Carrie" deals with the making of the movie, and again features interviews with all involved.

The featurette "Singing Carrie" looks at turning the movie into a musical, and the "Stephen King and the Evolution of Carrie Essays" is a series of textual screens.

The only thing missing is a director`s commentary track.

Conclusion

Many older horror movies don`t cut the mustard nowadays because what was shocking when they were released is very tame now, and in some ways, Carrie falls into this category. The film is saved by three things - firstly is it very well made, secondly a strong performance from Spacek and thirdly, Carrie is a very strong character who the audience feels genuinely sorry for, and is therefore interested in as the film progresses. This helps you through what is at times a slow and ponderous movie, which doesn`t do quite enough to justify the time spent waiting for the infamous ending to arrive.

The video and sound are not bad considering the standard of other horror movies from this era, but the real highlights of this disc are the exceptionally good documentaries which are almost worth the asking price by themselves.