On its way to precisely no Oscars whatsoever is Carrie, a remake — or "reimagining" as they call it — of the 1976 horror classic about an outcast high school girl with special telekinetic powers. The original, directed by Brian de Palma, known for his lurid style and subject matter before more recently somewhat slipping from view, was one of the very first X-rated films I managed to slip into under-age, and I remember it stayed with me for days. The fire and brimstone of Carrie's religious maniac of a mother (an unforgettable performance by Hollywood veteran Piper Laurie), the buckets (literally) of blood and the gothic trappings combined to produce an almost operatic effect; indeed, the film was later adapted (unsuccessfully) as a stage musical by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

This time what we have is a much more generic high-school teen horror flick, which probably reflects the downgrading of this genre from its former position as strictly adult entertainment to something geared towards groups of mall rats on the lookout for jokey thrills. Carrie (the 16-year-old Chloë Grace Moretz) is the classroom outsider this time who, pushed to the limits of endurance by her unhinged mother (a bland, ineffectual Julianne Moore) and ghastly goading schoolmates, uses her special power to move things with her brain to wreak bloody havoc at the High School prom. In terms of story there's virtually nothing new — whole scenes seem the same word-for-word — so one waits instead for the compensation of contemporary whizz-bang special effects. Unfortunately, the movie proves a let-down even in the carnage department-the one area where you might think they'd do better these days. Pointless.