Flick Picks: New blood for an old bloodbath as Carrie remake messes with your mind

FLICK PICKS: Horror classic Carrie has been remade and, as Leigh Paatsch writes, it still seriously messes with your mind.

NEW BLOOD FOR AN OLD BLOODBATH

News_Image_File: That's not tomato sauce ... Chloe Grace Moretz in Carrie.

Director Brian De Palma's chilling 1976 adaptation of the Stephen King novel CARRIE was a both a game-changer and a gut-wrencher, culminating in one of the most ickily iconic finales in horror movie history. While this well-made remake will never be regarded in the same way, it achieves all the right shocks in a majorly unsettling way. The plot initially centres on the dysfunctional upbringing of the telekinetic title character (Chloe Grace Moretz) at the hands of her mother (Julianne Moore), an unstable religious zealot. Life at home is hell. Away from home, it is getting even worse. Then comes that famously frightening final act at the high school prom. Just as Carrie is on the verge of being accepted by her peers, one of them moves to make sure this never happens. Save for a few minor tweaks, director Kimberly Peirce follows De Palma's bloody blueprint for this disturbing climax to the letter. As originally designed, it is a sequence that seriously messes with your mind, and refuses to straighten everything up afterwards.

{General release.}

SURVIVAL IS MORE THAN INSTINCT

News_Rich_Media: An American girl on holiday in the English countryside with her family finds herself in hiding and fighting for her survival as war breaks out.

Based on the best-selling young-adult novel by Meg Rosoff. HOW I LIVE NOW covers the same territory occupied by Tomorrow, When the War Began, but with more intelligence, restraint and better production values. A spoilt American teen (Saoirse Ronan) is forced to suffer a summer with her cousins in the English countryside. Then London is obliterated by a nuclear explosion, and martial law is imposed. The real suffering has only just begun. Ronan (star of Hanna and Atonement) remains the best young female actor this side of Jennifer Lawrence. Directed by Kevin MacDonald (The Last King of Scotland).

{General release.}

News_Image_File: Summer days ... George MacKay and Saoirse Ronan star in film How I Live Now.

HOW A NATION BECAME ADDICTED TO POTTS

News_Rich_Media: One Chance is the remarkable and inspirational true story of Paul Potts, a shy, bullied shop assistant by day and an amateur opera singer by night.

He was tubby. He was teased. He was taken to hospital again and again. Anything else? Yeah. He could sing. Pipes of a true tenor. The kind of voice that puts mist in eyes, lumps in throats, and gags in mouths of those who say they don't do opera. You'd swear this reads like the background profile of a TV talent show contestant. Oh. Hang on minute. This is indeed the story of a TV talent show contestant. Here comes ONE CHANCE, the feel-good, against-all-odds tale of how Paul Potts (played by James Corden) took out the 2007 series of Britain's Got Talent. The Poms just couldn't resist getting behind this overweight underdog. You just might feel the same way too. Co-stars Colm Meaney, Julie Walters.

{General release.}

News_Image_File: No clowning around ... James Corden in One Chance for Hit.