By One thing was absolutely clear from the New York Comic Con’s Carrie panel: they do not want this to be called a remake. Over and over again both director Kimberly Pierce and lead actors Julianne Moore and Chloë Grace Moretz stressed that they really went back to Stephen King’s original novel for inspiration. They of course love the De Palma version, but really wanted this to be another take on the subject matter.
Who knows if that is true or not, but they definitely seem to be doing up. The panel featured a teaser (described below) along with discussion on the characters, bullying and really digging into the characters. Also, blood. Lot’s and lot’s of blood.
Also, stay tuned later in the week for interviews with Moore, Mortez and Pierce.
We’ll start with the teaser, which unfortunately wasn’t much to go on, but did confirm that Mortez is going to indeed be covered in blood. The teaser opened with an aerial shot of a town that looked like a riot had gone through. Buildings on fire (most notably what looks like a high school) and just general destruction all over the place. As the camera flies closer into the town pushing down into a street a voicerover of a lot of different people talking about someone we can only assume is Carrie. Words like “Her Mother was a fanatic. I don’t know how she lived with her.” Finally the camera has swooped down to the street with the music ramping up and it pushes in on Mortez covered in blood and looking very, very angry. There’s also someone singing over the entire trailer. Moore said this was a hymn mentioned in a book that Carrie’s mother sings.
It was a solid teaser and also came along with the poster you see below, which emphasizes once again Mortez and blood baths. The teaser definitely hints at the closer adherence to the book. For one it’s the entire town being destroyed not just the school. Moore’s singing over the trailer also shows the greater focus in the film on Carrier and her mother. This is definitely the new major focus of the film with Pierce basically discussing it, and Moore and Mortez often diving in to their work together. Moore actually discussed the back story of Carrie’s mother Margaret saying, “The character is rooted in isolation. She was in a religious cult and it wasn’t strict enough for here so she left … When she was pregnant, she thought the child was a cancer and delivered alone. She’s a very isolated woman.” It speaks to this focus that none of Carrie’s tormentors in school were on the panel.
What was discussed almost as much as Carrie and Margaret’s relationship was the amount of blood being used. Pierce estimated that they used about 1,000 gallons of blood and Mortez pointed out that she was often caked in different types of blood (wet blood, dry blood, fire blood) and eventually she got “use to coming home covered in blood.” In a humorous note Pierce detailed how incredibly difficult it is to aim blood, and that a lot of experimentation went into just how to cover Mortez in it. “It never hits the person you want it to,” she joked.
This also relates to the fact that the film is definitely R-rated. Producer Kevin Misher, who was also on the panel, said that having the R rating was pretty freeing. It does mean the film “legally” can’t be seen by an age group, but he said the story demands the R rating. The crowd definitely liked this news.
I was seriously not on board for this remake, but after hearing Pierce discuss the movie it’s clear she wanted to make her own thing. The panel also admitted that they’re rejiggering it for modern bullying (cyber bullying was mentioned), and a lot has changed since the original film came out in that respect so maybe it won’t be the exact same thing. Plus, Moore and Mortez seem to be very behind it (Moore showing up at Comic-Con is huge), and if they believe then I’m a bit more apt to.
