It’s not always easy to adapt someone else’s work.
Stick too close to the source material, and you end up with Gus Van Sant’s Psycho. Veer just a bit away from it, and you may end up with surprises like Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining or Frank Darabont’s The Mist. Tossing out the source material or rushing the story gives you Nikolaj Arcel’s The Dark Tower. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Even Stephen King had a rough time adapting his own work to film with Maximum Overdrive.
So seeing that we have yet another adaptation of King’s first novel, Carrie, I was a little confused and surprised when Mike Flanagan’s name came up. I know I haven’t kept up on everything online these days, but wasn’t he working on an adaptation for The Exorcist? Either way, we have it, and it looks like it has the potential to be pretty great. Flanagan’s no stranger to King’s works, having adapted Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep.
As always, Flanagan’s invited some of this friends to join in on the fun. For me, the standout returning actor is Samantha Sloyan, who previously worked on Hush, Midnight Mass, and The Life of Chuck, among others. Samantha’s playing Margaret White, and while Piper Laurie’s portrayal in Brian DePalma’s 1976 classic still scares me, I’m excited to see how this will turn out. Additionally, we have Midnight Mass‘ Michael Trucco and Rahul Kohli on hand. Of course, Flanagan production would be complete without his Hush lead actress, muse and wife, Actor/Director Kate Siegel. Matthew Lillard (Five Nights at Freddy’s) and Amber Midthunder (Prey, Novocaine) are also featured, with Summer H Howell (Night of the Reaper) as Carrie.
Carrie premieres on Amazon Prime early this October, just in time for Halloween.
Through the Shattered Lens 
That image of all the girls recording something unfortunate on their phones shows they’re not only cruel, they’re stupid. I’ve never understood this. Since they all know one another, why not just have one person record the footage and send it to everyone else? It’s like when one smoker asks another smoker already in the act of smoking for a light, then the person who is smoking fumbles around for his or her lighter. Why not just light the unlit cigarette with the one that’s already lit? Not that you should be smoking, but I digress.
Oh, all that, and as we’ve seen many times before, Hollywood is fresh out of ideas. Here we have a story about bullying, yet it’s abundantly clear that there will be not a shred of humanity to be found, people will just watch this to see a string of brutal simulated deaths. Time for something new — and maybe, methinks, time for something humane. Yet I don’t expect this from modern Hollywood, an industry that valorises bullying under the guise of tolerance.
LikeLike