Modern version of ‘Carrie’ retells horror tale in post-Newtown era

LOS ANGELES - Agence France-Presse

Chloe Moretz (L) and Julianne Moore star in the modern version of Brian De Palma’s cult horror movie ‘Carrie,’ which will be released on Oct 25. AP photo

Nearly 40 years after Brian De Palma’s cult horror movie “Carrie” shocked audiences, a new adaptation of Stephen King’s masterpiece tells the story in an America haunted by the Columbine and Newtown massacres.

The modern version, released in the United States on Oct. 25, co-stars Oscar-nominated Julianne Moore, and is directed by Kimberly Peirce, whose 1999 “Boys Don’t Cry” won Hilary Swank the best actress Oscar.

De Palma’s 1976 effort, starring Sissy Spacek in the title role, drew a wider audience to “Carrie,” the novel published two years previously by the then barely known King.

In the new movie 16-year-old Chloe Grace Moretz takes the role of the tortured adolescent who uses her telepathic powers to wreak revenge on her cruel classmates and her bigoted mother, played by Moore.

“At first I was daunted, as anybody would be. I’m a huge fan of Brian De Palma’s original’,” Peirce said at a Beverly Hills press conference ahead of the movie’s release.

“This is a girl who is a misfit. And she discovers she has a talent, like many of us, whether we can write, we can direct, we can photograph, whatever our talent is in the world, it makes us feel like life might be OK,” she said.

 But Carrie uses her talent in murderous ways, at her school’s senior prom. In an America still traumatized by the school gun massacre in Newtown last December, when a gunman killed 26 people including 20 young children the latest in a long line of mass shootings stretching back to Columbine in 1999 Peirce said she wanted to be careful.

Moore, who exhibits her customary precision as Carrie’s deeply religious mother Margaret White, said both the book and the film highlight the damage that can stem from isolation.

“I don’t want to minimize what happened in Newtown but that was a boy who was extremely isolated, he obviously was mentally ill and he spent a lot of time alone. I think there are real dangers to people being left out.” Moore portrayed Carrie’s mother as a real outsider.