Carrie
Screen Gems | Release Date: October 18, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
53
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
11
Mixed:
18
Negative:
5
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchKevin C. JohnsonOct 17, 2013
Long before the blood starts spilling, it’s clear the new team has mostly nailed it. The reboot is as good a Carrie remake as possible, though it’s not truly a scary movie; the film takes its time living up to its R rating. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzOct 18, 2013
For all the psychological realism of Carrie and Margaret's relationship, however, this remake has a comic book feeling. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleOct 17, 2013
In a way, the new Carrie is almost too easy to enjoy. Everything discordant and all the nagging weirdness and strange feelings surrounding the original have been smoothed down, and what we're left with is a well-made, highly satisfying and not particularly deep high school revenge movie. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanOct 17, 2013
It’s as affecting as drama as it is effective as horror. It wrenches, even as it unnerves. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaOct 17, 2013
If you're going to take another stab at this tale of a taunted, traumatized teen who exacts fiery revenge on, well, everyone, then Kimberly Peirce is the director to do it. Read full review
70
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonOct 17, 2013
Kimberly Peirce changes almost nothing in her rallying remake of Brian De Palma’s classic about a troubled telekinetic teenager. She doesn’t have to. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisOct 17, 2013
Ms. Peirce plays up the story’s religious themes and Carrie’s burgeoning power as she discovers her telekinetic gifts, even as the dread of the female body that deepens Mr. De Palma’s version somehow goes missing. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenOct 23, 2013
Carrie has proved itself to be a remarkably resilient tale that’s not likely to be plugged up anytime soon. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerOct 18, 2013
Peirce is gifted, but she lacks the ability of directors like DePalma to transform schlock into something deeply personal. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanOct 17, 2013
But now we're a lot more accustomed to seeing movie characters mold their destiny through special effects, and since Peirce films the climax in a rather depersonalized, shoot-the-works way, Carrie comes close to seeming like an especially alienated member of the X-Men team. She blows stuff up real good, in a way that would make the devil — or Bruce Willis — proud. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsOct 17, 2013
The acting's strong; in addition to Moretz and Moore, Judy Greer is a welcome presence in the Betty Buckley role of the sympathetic gym instructor. But something's missing from this well-made venture. What's there is more than respectable, while staying this side of surprising. Read full review
60
Total FilmJamie GrahamNov 29, 2013
One of the more solid ’70s horror remakes, but it lacks the verve and potency, romance and heartache of the original. Still, the haircuts are a vast improvement... Read full review
60
Time Out LondonCath ClarkeNov 26, 2013
Moretz is unnervingly talented, but Carrie is not a role she was born to play. She hasn’t a victim’s bone in her body and fluffs the early scenes when the mean girls pick on her. Read full review
60
EmpireMark DinningNov 25, 2013
A remake that doesn’t see the legacy of Carrie White burn in hell. But not one that adds much to it either. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfOct 18, 2013
Only Julianne Moore, as the Bible-thumping mom, has an instinct to go softer — how couldn’t she, after Piper Laurie? — and paradoxically, it’s a move that feels wrong, the role requiring its cantatory bigness. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyOct 17, 2013
Peirce has done a remaking rather than a reimagining. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierOct 17, 2013
Where Sissy Spacek seemed otherworldly and haunted in De Palma’s film, Moretz (“Hugo,” “Kick-Ass”) is sadder. She’s a terrific young actress. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyOct 17, 2013
If De Palma’s version was one part adolescent dream, three parts nightmare, with a sly streak of satire running through it, Peirce’s is a more earnest yet still engrossing take on the story that should connect with contemporary teens. At the very least it might send fledgling horror buffs scurrying to their Netflix queues to watch a vintage masterpiece of the genre. Read full review
60
VarietyJustin ChangOct 17, 2013
Director Kimberly Peirce’s intermittently effective third feature eschews De Palma’s diabolical wit and voluptuous style in favor of a somber, straight-faced retelling, steeped in a now-familiar horror-movie idiom of sharp objects, shuddering sound effects and dark rivulets of blood. Read full review
58
Film.comWilliam GossOct 17, 2013
Alas, despite the timeless concerns of adolescent bullying and burgeoning sexuality, Carrie as a film fails to become its own satisfyingly whole interpretation of coming-of-age horrors both literal and figurative. Its bloodshed may be all dressed up, but it ultimately has nowhere to go. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 20, 2013
There are problems with De Palma's version, especially in its portrayal of the key relationship between Carrie and her mother, but it's a more engaging and insightful portrayal than Kimberly Peirce's too-slick remake. Read full review
50
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreOct 20, 2013
So yes, even if you know how this story goes, there are moments that work wickedly well in between the needlessly drawn out ones, by which I mean the entire, predictable third act. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia PuigOct 17, 2013
Rather than offering new blood, Carrie is a purely cosmetic revamp. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesBill ZweckerOct 17, 2013
This Carrie comes off like a Lifetime film, adding little new and nothing substantial to improve on DePalma’s classic. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezOct 17, 2013
This Carrie becomes less involving as it goes along, ceding its emotional power to special effects and unconvincing gore, and culminating with a closing shot so lame and uninspired, it’s as if the filmmakers just gave up and called it a day. Read full review
50
The DissolveNathan RabinOct 17, 2013
Despite the talent involved and the notoriety of the source material, Carrie feels strangely small, even television-sized. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Oct 17, 2013
It’s a strange thing to say about a movie so obsessed with the red stuff, but this Carrie is bloodless. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinOct 20, 2013
The new Carrie isn’t atrocious — just flat and uninspired and compromised by the kind of mindless teen-movie “humanism” that De Palma so punkishly spat on. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzOct 17, 2013
Comparisons are unfair and inevitable. But even when taken on its own terms, the new Carrie rings hollow, a horror movie that is unsure of itself, with little to offer the uninitiated and less to offer fans of the first film. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTy BurrOct 17, 2013
The new Carrie is a thoroughly dispiriting remake — “retread” is the appropriate word — that could have been directed by any proficient Hollywood hack. Read full review
30
TimeRichard CorlissOct 20, 2013
Why did these talented folks decide to take on Carrie when they had nothing innovative to bring to it and, by refrying the same blood sausage, risked invidious comparison to the original? To put it another way: If the most modest expectations cannot be met, indeed must be crushed, then What Is Life? Read full review
25
New York PostLou LumenickOct 17, 2013
Hollywood’s ongoing campaign to remake every horror movie of the 1970s and ’80s has finally caught up with the Stephen King-Brian De Palma classic “Carrie,’’ and the results are distressingly anemic, pig blood and all. Read full review
25
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthOct 17, 2013
When the end comes, and the suggestion of a sequel is left faintly lingering (though not in the way you’re expecting), weariness descends on just how unimaginative Carrie is and how easily it settles for the expected, rather than striving to be excitingly refreshing. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineEric HendersonOct 17, 2013
In focusing on predominately kid-gloves portrayals of her teen players, Kimberly Peirce never properly addresses the machinery behind their doom, which is why the film is relentlessly lifeless when it's not literally ripping off De Palma shot-for-shot. Read full review
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