You're a beautiful woman probably...

Sadly, I think a lack of imagination has meant a serious drop in standards and attitudes in "horror" films. I do love old horror/fantasy films (Terence Fisher's expression was “adult fairy tales”) but want to be uplifted – film should be an emotional experience, but not one that makes you want to slash your wrists. I don't think it's a coincidence that many of the films covered and praised in podcast s and on line ( Night of the Demon, The Devil Rides Out, The Wicker Man etc) are retrospective, and more than thirty years old. Just to establish where I'm coming from, can I say that I really liked Witchfinder General, Hellraiser and Candyman , all of which were gruesome films. One of my favourite horror films is Brian DePalma's Carrie , because it's psychological horror. What distinguishes all of these from lesser films is character and plot. I actually read a review of Carrie on IMDB where the (amateur) reviewer rubbished it because there wasn...

I recently watched Brian DePalma's Carrie again and dug out an old review I wrote of it way back in the 80s. I thought that I might have been looking back with rose-tinted specs but, to my pleasant surprise, I was as impressed with the film as I ever was. It's certainly "of its time", as the fashions and attitudes take us firmly back to 1976 - but that doesn't seem to hurt it at all and, in my opinion, it holds up vastly better than most other films of the same vintage, and better than any of DePalma's other films. I've left the following (naive as it is) largely unchanged from when I first wrote it in 1987. In passing I dared to criticise the sacred Stanley Kubrick, and my opinion of his Stephen King adaptation is unchanged. Warning: it does contain spoilers. They’re all gonna laugh at you Brian DePalma’s Carrie examined by John H An ugly duckling schoolgirl assailed by the jeers of her schoolmates and the cruel repression of her religious maniac...