(Watch Carrie Online) Honestly, the only remake I watched this week that I had any use for was THE FLY. As I discussed in my essay, I did enjoy the original, but I liked what the new version did not only with the advances in special effects technology, but also with the script in making it more relevant to the time in which it was made. As to the others, LET ME IN was a fine film, but it was a carbon copy of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, and regardless of what Matt Reeves thought he was accomplishing with his localization, it didn’t do or say anything that the original hadn’t already done or said, and better at that. We’ve both discussed the I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE remake at some length and the various reasons it’s so appalling, and while I appreciate the craft that went into the making of the LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT remake, I think they took the wrong lessons from the original and pulled their punches where they should have hit hard, and hit hard where they maybe should have backed off a little.

(Watch Carrie Online) Basically, this week did very little to improve my opinion of remakes in general. Part of that’s no doubt what I picked to watch (as I mentioned in our Google Hangout, I think I made a terrible mistake with all the rape/revenge crap I put myself through this week), but I also had to rack my brain to think of examples of remakes I enjoyed to reference above. I feel like good remakes that have legitimate reasons to exist (that is, non-business and not the director saying “I really liked this movie and I want to make it myself!”) are the exception rather than the norm.

For every THE FLY or THE THING, there are going to be a dozen LET ME INs or LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFTs, movies that either add nothing new to the text of the original, or completely miss the point (I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE was attempting to modernize the story and cash in on the whole torture porn craze, but the fact that it’s aggressively bad and offensive honestly has very little to do with the fact that it’s a remake, other than the fact that it’s a remake of an already problematic film).

(Watch Carrie Online) I guess as with any film, it just comes down to the intentions of the filmmakers involved, and the level of skill or talent they’re able to employ in order to see those intentions realized. It becomes more complicated with remakes simply because we already have a point of reference for that story, and how we feel about what the remake does will a lot of the time depend largely on how we feel about the original.

(Watch Carrie Online) Carrie is an American supernatural horror film. It is the third film adaptation of Stephen King’s 1974 novel of the same name, and a remake of Brian De Palma’s 1976 film of the same name, although it is said that the new adaptation will follow the novel’s premise more closely. It stars Chloë Grace Moretz as the title character, and Julianne Moore as her mother, Margaret White. The film will be the first co-production between MGM and Screen Gems.

(Watch Carrie Online) In May 2011, MGM and Screen Gems announced they were producing a film remake of Carrie. MGM and Screen Gems hired Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa to write the script for the new film with “a more faithful adaption” of King’s novel. Aguirre-Sacasa previously adapted King’s epic The Stand into comic-book form in 2008.

(Watch Carrie Online) Upon hearing about it, King remarked, “The real question is why, when the original was so good?” He also suggested Lindsay Lohan for the main role, saying that “it would certainly be fun to cast”. Actress Sissy Spacek also expressed her opinion about Lohan as Carrie White, stating that she “was like, ‘Oh my God, she’s really a beautiful girl’ and so I was very flattered that they were casting someone to look like me instead of the real Carrie described in the book. It’s gonna be real interesting.” In March 2012, the role of Carrie was offered to Chloë Grace Moretz. Moretz accepted the role. Julianne Moore stars as Carrie’s mother Margaret White and Gabriella Wilde as Sue Snell. Chronicle’s Alex Russell and Broadway actor Ansel Elgort are also in the main cast. Judy Greer plays the gym teacher, Miss Desjardin. Kimberly Peirce is directing the film.