[This is a little experiment I’ll be doing here on the blog, and if all goes well there’ll be more of these. The idea here is that lots of movies have story problems, but there are often possible solutions to these issues, and this will be my attempt to present some of those potential solutions. There will be spoilers for the films I’m discussing.]

Let’s get this out of the way right at the start shall we? I didn’t see the original. I didn’t read the book. I’m judging this thing based on what it is, not comparing it to the source material.

Before we dig into the stuff that didn’t work, let’s talk about the stuff that did. Chloe Grace Moretz and Julianne Moore both portray their characters admirably, and the first three quarters of the film works well enough. The supporting cast isn’t much to write home about, and the characters aren’t the deepest you’ve ever seen, but you can buy into their motivations.

The problems start out with the superficial. This film feels like a film. It takes place in film world, at a film highschool, with film people in it. The lighting is perfect, the sets are perfect, the people are perfect. Nothing about this feels like any real public high school. At this sense extends beyond the school. It seems like Carrie is MAYBE supposed to be poor, but she lives in a big house in a beautiful neighborhood and the only sign that she’s different is that she’s dressed frumpily. It’s as if this film was made by people who had never actually met a poor person.

Here’s what I would change. Take the shine off of the setting. Let in a little grit, a little grime. If we saw these teenagers as kids from a small town with no future making fun of the one girl on the social ladder lower than they are the story would have a much more potent impact. What we have instead is a bunch of valley girls who are all rich and attend a pristine high-school. A lot of work went into making this film look pretty, but this isn’t a story that needs to be pretty. It’s an ugly story about ugly truths and the cinematography and set design could go a lot further toward representing that.

So the film looks too good. Whatever, right? I mean there are worse things you could say about movie. But the thing that really doesn’t work here isn’t how the film looks, but how it ends. I’m not fully sure why so many films have problems with their final act, but suffice it to say that this isn’t a problem that’s localized to Carrie. I said earlier that the first three quarters of the film were pretty okay, but when that bucket of blood falls, that’s when everything seems to come off the rails.

First, we have no previous indication that Carrie is capable of the rage-monster antics she suddenly displays in response to this horrific event. The movie spends a good deal of time establishing her powers, but it give no indication that she’s emotionally capable of violently and systematically killing tens if not hundreds of her peers. We see her fear, and we see her loneliness, but how does that manifest itself into the kind of self-sustaining rage that fuels her climactic decimation of the prom and those who wronged her? The movie doesn’t bother to give us an answer, instead hoping we’ll be distracted by the gratuitous violence.

The final showdown between Carrie and her mother plays out slightly more believably. She’s no longer the rage monster. She doesn’t want to hurt her mom. She wants to find solace and comfort, and her mentally disturbed mother, predictably, betrays that trust.

But even here we’re left wanting more. The mother is killed in a hail of CG knives levitated by a vengeful Carrie, and then Carrie pulls the house down around her, because…why exactly?

Of course the obvious reason is that Carrie can’t survive this. She can’t walk out of that house changed and reborn, a dark force for vengeance against the oppressed and downtrodden, and wow even as I’m writing this sentence I’m sad I don’t get to see that movie. The story has to go where the story has to go, and it feels mostly mechanical.

They tack on some half-hearted moral about treating people nice or something, and then we get a completely pointless shot of the Carrie’s gravestone cracking by supernatural force and the credits roll.

Why? Were they really trying to leave things open for a Carrie 2: Zombie Carrie? Because, again, that is a movie I’d want to see.

The best way I can think to fix this ending is to show that there is some kind of demonic possession component to Carrie’s powers. We could show her struggling with the demon, fighting it’s control, keeping it at bay, only to finally give in to let its violent urges take over in her moment of greatest darkness.

I suspect what I’m suggesting is a departure from the book, but it would preserve some of the anti-bullying theme, and the climactic scene where the house is destroyed could be played as Carrie sacrificing herself to keep the demon from taking control of her once and for all.

All things considered I didn’t hate this movie, but I was disappointed that the conclusion didn’t feel very, well, conclusive.

These are my thoughts. I’d love to hear yours. Did you read the book or see the original movie? Did you think these problems could have been handled differently? Drop a line in the comments and let me know what you think.