Stephen King’s Carrie White has become a horror icon. 

The story itself is timeless: Outcast girl with telekinetic powers and seeks revenge on those who wronged her. 

Pig’s blood, menstrual blood, the whole shebang. There should be no spoilers here. 

What made Brian de Palma’s “Carrie” delightful and terrifying was the subtlety of effects in the 1976 film. The budget was relatively low and people didn’t demand to see gore at the mainstream theater, allowing filmmakers to focus more on storyline and less on the shock-and-scream factor. 

But in the 2013 remake, the original idea of “Carrie” is almost completely demolished. 

What director Kimberly Peirce tried to do with the original script is unclear, but the end result was possibly the most soulless and trite “horror” film ever concocted. 

When the “Star Wars” prequels came out in the early 2000s, die-hard fans complained that they took away everything fun about the originals. Nothing could be more accurate for this abomination of a remake. 

The new script tried to remain as true as it could to the original, while still maintaining relevance in the new era, and because of this, some of the words used, don’t carry much weight. It felt as if the actors didn’t fully understand how to incorporate their lines into “real” life. 

The original “Carrie” was set in the fictitious town of Chamberlain, Maine, a normal, if not small town, with a working and middle-class population. This new adaptation seems to be set in Los Angeles, because every one of the inhabitants has perfectly quaffed hair, a personal trainer and a trust fund, including our leading lady, Carrie White, played by Chloe Grace Moretz. 

And never a worse choice was made. 

If there was ever a person who the audience is supposed to identify with, cheer for and believe to be a social outcast, Moretz is not it. 

Staring stupidly, mouth agape from beginning to end, she desperately tries to convince the world that she is awkward and scared of the evil girls around her. But from her curled hair to her perfectly applied makeup, she fools no one. 

King’s Carrie White is hesitant to go to prom with Tommy Ross because she has things at stake: the relationship with her mother, her shattered ego post-tampon incident, the fact that Ross has never been kind to her in her life. The Carrie of 2013, however, doesn’t seem to mind these things and with her newfound power of telekinesis, she seems to feel invincible, hardly stopping to consider the full weight of her decision.

Worst of all, the film was boring. 

It took all of the teenybopper tropes and predictably threw them together. Nothing was at stake. There was no reason for the R rating, it could have easily been rated a cool PG-13, and for this they lost a considerable amount of respect. 

No one makes a remake of a classic film to try to make great art, because great art has already been made. Remakes are made so that broke Hollywood studios can make money. Instead of trying to build upon an already stable and interesting foundation, this was made so that the unfortunate younger generation can experience a Carrie that they can “relate” to. 

It is unfortunate that this atrocity was made and marketed to the younger crowd, because 2013’s “Carrie” does nothing to entice a further look into the original piece. If anything, the audience was completely put off of anything to do with Carrie White and her real story. 

Grade: F