Because of a glitch in my increasingly complicated AV system, I was unable to watch or Tivo tonight’s remake on NBC of Stephen King’s Carrie. This would fill me with despair and bitterness except for the fact that my friend D.R. has Tivoed it for me.
I fantasize pretty much every day about having supernatural powers. Before I moved to New York, it was pretty much always telekinesis, though back then I wasn’t full enough of rage to add in the pyrokinetic destruction of my enemies. Or, rather, I was full enough of rage, but I had no easy access to it because I had repressed it all. Now I split my fantasy time pretty evenly between the pyrokinetic destruction of my enemies and teleportation, which would mean I would never have to take the subway again.
I hope to see the remake of Carrie very soon. In the meantime, though, I found a not particularly favorable but hysterically funny review of it in The Toronto Star by a man named Rob Salem. Apparently, at the end of the remake, instead of dying, Carrie lives and drives off with Sue Snell. This is what Mr. Salem has to say:
“This isn’t just a lame TV-movie remake. This is in fact a lame ‘back-door pilot.’ Stay tuned, I’m very afraid, for Carrie: The Series. Now, I’ve actually given this some thought, and I’ve come up with several plot suggestions for the series’ first season. Consider them a gift. Or a warning.
“Episode #1: ‘Dressed For Success’—Carrie and Sue pull into a mid-western town where they both get jobs at The Gap. Tempers flare when Carrie is accused of hoarding sale items for herself. Sue then discovers the clothes in question stashed in an empty change room, but it is already too late, because Carrie has already killed everyone in the store and set the mall on fire.
“Episode #2: ‘Do You Want Fries With That?’—The girls are working the late shift at an all-night diner when a couple of small-time hoods try to hold the place up. Carrie telekinetically suspends one of them upside down in mid-air, dunking him head-first into a tub of boiling fat. The other escapes, running right into the arms of the awaiting cops, who arrive just in time to see an enraged Carrie kill everyone in the place and then set it on fire.
“Episode #3: ‘Homeless Is Where The Heart Is’—A very special episode of Carrie: The Series, with Sue signing both of them up as volunteers to serve Christmas dinner at a shelter. Everything goes fine until Carrie accidentally undercooks the turkey. The starving homeless people turn on them, advancing slowly, forks and knives in hand. Carrie has no choice but to kill them all and burn the shelter to the ground.
“Episode #4: ‘The Sincerest Form Of Flattery’—Carrie and Sue narrowly escape a police roadblock just outside Florida, and end up laying low in a motel. The police eventually track them down by following the trail of blackened, smoking corpses. Surrounding the motel, they call in two experts, a has-been film director (a cameo by Brian De Palma) and a recently retired horror novelist (Stephen King), who try to talk the girls into surrendering themselves. Carrie is clearly moved by their entreaties. And then she kills them both and sets the motel on fire.”
I would become addicted to this series in a heartbeat.
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