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THE MOVIE
Carrie , based on The Stephen King novel, will always be a gem in the
horror movie community, despite the fact that there are people that love it
and people that weren't impressed by it after having read Steven King's novel.
Both a chilling and a depressing film, Carrie is a movie where the audience
gets the opportunity to actually care for the main character in the plot. The
audience is able to view the depressing life of Carrie White, allowing them
to view both the good times (few and far in between) and the many tough times
she is forced to go through. By observing what Carrie goes through in her life,
the audience develops a liking, a compassion and sympathy for her, something
that hardly ever happens for the perpetrator in other horror movies. It is a
distinct difference. Most horror films avoid revelaing too much about a killer's
personality as they feel it diffuses the fear factor. Carrie though is very
different in this aspect.
The plot is about a girl named Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) who is a social
pariah. Ostracized by her high school classmates, she keeps to herself, rarely
exchanging a word with anyone. When she experiences her first period while taking
a shower after gym class, she becomes the object of open derision. Because she
is different from everyone else in her senior class, she is often made fun of
and taunted. At the school prom Carrie is happy to be with her date. This soon
changes though when her classmates once again taunt her. Carrie finally snaps
and eventually, there is the expected blood bath (both literally and figuratively),
with Carrie letting loose her unchecked fury at the prom.
Overall, this movie was strong in most areas. Much of the power of it comes
through from the tremendous job Sissy Spacek did in acting Carrie's character
(who earned a nomination for Best Actress). The movie also starred Nancy
Allen and a young John Travolta. Travolta's acting ability in this,
one of his first film roles, is VERY lacklustre. He really has come a very long
way since then. With the imagination of Stephen King and some great acting (and
some not so good), Carrie is a good adaptation of the novel and will
always have a cult status with horror movie fans.
THE TRANSFER
Video:
The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, however it is not
16x9 enhanced which is a shame. Had this been 16x9 it would have improved the
image signifcantly.
With the movie being made in 1976 chances are the image won't be as spectacular
as we are used to with modern prints. Well unfortunately that holds true in
this case.
The video isn't as sharp and detailed as I would have liked and shadow detail
is rather low.
Colours were muted and oversaturated at times (but not all that often)
Luckily (and surprisingly for a 24 year old film) the print was clean with
no film artefacts of any kind. There were also no MPEG artefacts.
All in all not the best of transfers but definitely not all that bad.
Audio:
MGM has put five soundtracks on this disc, English Dolby Digital 5.1 and German,
French, Italian and Spanish all in Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, quite a weird setup.
The soundtrack was very well done with frequent and aggressive use of the surround
channels.
Dialogue was clear and easy to understand throught the movie.
The audio is very good and fares much better than the video transfer.
THE EXTRAS
The standard extras on this MGM disc. No Royal treatment in this department.
Theatrical Trailer
Booklet
SUMMARY
A classic horror flick in many people's mind and definitely worth watching.
The extras though are disappointing but considering what some other studios
put on their back catalogue movies then this is plentiful.
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