An Idea For A Remake

You know, I've got issues. What started as a simple bit of maintenance on my review of Cry Wolf the other night turned into a full-blown overhaul of thirty reviews that kept me up until 7:30 in the morning, then I woke up five hours later and worked on thirty more until 5:00 in the afternoon. Seriously, don't ask. All I'll tell you is that I have way too much time on my hands and not enough things to do with it.

But that's not what I was aiming to talk about. What I wanted to talk about was the made-for-television remake of Carrie, which I'm watching on the USA Network right now. If you didn't know, yeah, somebody did a remake of Carrie as a TV miniseries back in 2002. It's got Angela Bettis from May in the lead role, which is the most brilliant bit of casting I've seen in a long time. You'd think with her as Carrie, along with a few other notable names in the cast, the movie would turn out halfway decent, right? Outside of those two and maybe two or three really good scenes, there's really not a whole lot of reason to choose the remake over the original. Just because it's more faithful to the book doesn't mean it's any better. Of course, the fact that it was supposed to be the pilot for a TV show doesn't help things either.

See, I'd have no problem with another remake of Carrie if it were given the proper treatment. Of course, given how it turns out in the end, you'd probably have people complaining that it's going to inspire more violence from these idiots who want to load up on weapons like they were friggin' Rambo, march into the local school, and mow down thirty people. But since we live that kind of a society, a movie where a downtrodden, unloved misfit goes completely out of her gourd at the prom before wiping out half the town with her thoughts would make for a gripping social commentary if handled correctly.

I'm not saying I advocate a remake of Carrie. The original film is perfect the way it is, and the version I'm watching now (and that awful sequel that came out in 1999) really didn't need to be made. But if somebody decided to do a theatrical remake, I doubt I'd argue. As long as the movie didn't suck, that is.