(Mini Series) Carrie - The Latest Reimagining of the First Stephen King's Novel with Awesome Performance of the Lead Cast

Yesterday after finishing a lot of things, I was ready to watch something new. While browsing Prime Video, I noticed this new mini series that I knew would be released this week but I was pleasantly surprised to see all episodes were already available. So I immediately began watching and managed to finish it this morning. Well I'll just get right to it then.

Brief Story Line

Carrie White (Summer H. Howell - Night of the Reaper, Time Cut etc) had been living in seclusion with her overly protective and religious mother Margaret (Samantha Sloyan - The Midnight Club TV series, The Life of Chuck etc) and was home schooled since childhood. But after something unexpected occurred, the County instructed Margaret to get job and Carrie to go to normal school. For the first time in her life, Carrie had to face the outside world dealing with everyone who viewed her differently, especially the mean girl Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton - Dare Me TV series etc) with her group of Tina (Josie Totah - Saved by the Bell reboot series etc) and Sue Snell (Siena Agudong - Resident Evil TV series, Alex & Me etc). The Gym teacher Ms. Rita Desjardin (Amber Midthunder - Avatar: The Last Airbender TV series, The Ice Road etc) was the one who tried to protect Carrie, though it also put her in difficult spot in the eyes of principal Henry Grayle (Matthew Lilard - Five Nights at Freddy's 2, Scream movies etc).

While Carrie juggled through her difficult time in school, she befriended Emaline (Thalia Dudek) and also started to develop her telekinetic power. Things gotten out of hand when Chris did a much more damaging thing that put Carrie in worse place and also hurting the lives of everyone.  All these had great impact on Carrie's already challenging life dealing with school bullies and her mother which resulted to extreme circumstances.

So what would happen to Carrie and how would the story conclude? You could find out in this series.

End of Brief Story Line

I knew about Carrie as it was a quite famous novel written by the prolific author Stephen King which had apparently been adapted into 3 movies, 1 TV film and now a mini series. However I only ever watched the 2013 adaptation which was not the best according to critics but it did give me an idea of what the story was. Frankly that film actually left a great impression to me due to its extreme violence in the end and also the why it occurred. Which was why when I watched this series, I was reminded on the reasons I liked it a lot. Now this latest adaptation is very modern and really up to date with recent situation, like the constant use of social media but most of them remained the same, i.e. bullying, mean girls and that telekinetic power. However, there were few elements that were added to expand the story which I got mixed feeling.

In the beginning, I thought the series was going to be just a long version of the story from the novel. But as I continued watching, it was clear that the extra elements were provided to make it more interesting. On this part I was actually quite OK at first, but in the end, this made me felt the impact on Carrie's experience and ending less strong. Plus there was a bit unclarity in the end which made me less satisfied. Another thing that I was half OK was the long teen drama part involving the social media, although it was also what set this one apart from the previous adaptation and make the story more complete with more context on the other characters. 

Talking about the characters, there were plenty of important ones on top of the above such as Sue's boyfriend Tommy (Joel Oulette - My Life with the Walter Boys TV series etc) and Chris' new boyfriend Billy (Arthur Conti - Beetlejuice Beetlejuice etc) who were part of the main cast. In addition, I saw a lot of familiar faces too in support roles like Rahul Kohli (Death and Other Details TV series etc) as English teacher Seth Peist, Tim Bagley (Grace and Frankie TV series etc) as guidance councellor Mr. Morton, Michael Trucco (Battlestar Galactica TV series etc) and Heather Graham (They Will Kill You etc) as Chris' parents John & Madison, Gil Bellows (Ally McBeal TV series etc) as Madison's new boyfriend Kent and many more. There were also appearances of Kate Siegel (Hypnotic etc) as Adelaide, Katee Sackhoff (The Mandalorian season 2 & 3 etc) as Amanda, Tahmoh Penikett (Dollhouse TV series etc) as Carrie's father Ralph and several others. The series itself was developed and written by Mike Flanagan (Doctor Sleep, Gerald's Game, creator of series like The Fall of the House of Usher etc). He also directed few episodes here.

From what I read, critics were impressed by the series and praised the modern touch and expansion as well as the performance of the cast. In this regard, I have to agree that Summer H. Lowell was really amazing. She was so convincing as the childlike girl at the early stage and scary when she embraced her darkness. Samantha Sloyan was also awesome as the disturbed mother who was just trying to protect her daughter in the ways she could. The rest were pretty decent with most of the actors and actresses playing high school students surprisingly looked good (not overly mature like other films/series). Btw this one was having 8 episodes with duration between 48-59 minutes and best part of it, they are all available in one day making it easy to finish immediately. 

Overall this was a wonderful reimagining of the first Stephen King's novel that felt relevant to the current condition and I loved the fact majority of the plot and the story remained the same. However I was more mixed on the focus on teen drama which I thought was a bit too long and the expansion of the universe (which actually made me wonder if Mike Flanagan was thinking of making this into a universe of his own). Although the category of mini series did not seem to open to that possibilty, but who knows? You can never guess nowadays. Oh there was one thing that made me less satisfied on the climax part. I thought the intensity was disturbed due to the constant back and forth with the interview as I preferred it to be continuous and just return to the interview by the end. Other than those though, I was pretty entertained by the series, though few things would make me even more satisfied. So if you want to see a modern adaptation of Carrie, then this would be a nice experience. But if you have not seen any of them before or have not read the novel (like me), I think it would still be enjoyable especially if you are fans of such horror story combined with teen drama.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars