To prepare for my review of “Carrie” (2013), I watched the original Brian De Palma’s “Carrie” (1976) as well as the TV version broadcast in (2002). This experience was enlightening for critiquing the 2013 version of Carrie because it prompts me to ask the question, “Why?”

Here is the first and most significant difference I noticed about the three versions of “Carrie”. In De Palma’s 1976 version, the scene in the high school locker room, where the girls mock Carrie for being so naively shocked about having her first period, was filmed using full frontal nudity.

In the 2013 version, for some bizarre reason, we have a (puritanical) coupling of a teenage couple, which results in an insignificant and totally unnecessary plot twist. It (that sex-under-the-covers scene) could have, at least, been gratuitous to make up for the lack of nudity in the 2013 version. I did wonder if even though the actors were of legal age in 1976 (playing high school seniors), would such a scene today be perceived as child pornography even though the actors would also be above age? Hence that titillation being abandoned in 2013.

Other than these two minor contortions, the films were the same movie. Most scenes and dialogue were identical. A few technical effects were applied in “Carrie” 2013 that could not be used successfully in the 1976 version like the stoning of the house. That was achieved in the 2013 version.

There was a very sharp, intelligent, and sophisticated visual parallel using a religious idol and a grisly death that was in the 1976 version but was clumsily mishandled in the 2013 version. Missed opportunities seems to be a recurring weakness in the 2013 version.

Perhaps most disappointing is losing Sissy Spacek’s transformation from ugly duckling to beautiful swan. It was breathtaking in De Palma’s version. Director Kimberley Peirce failed to use Chloë Grace Moretz as well as Brian De Palma used Carrie Spacek and that summarizes it succinctly. Sissy Spacek owned the role and no one else can touch it.

I was bored stiff by the experience. Sure, De Palma’s version was a tad clumsy in various areas, but the 2013 version did nothing to improve De Palma’s work and even spoiled the best of the original.

“Carrie”’s climactic scene is so well known, and seen so often, why try to remake it unless totally and perhaps shockingly reinterpreting it in such a manner as to shock us all into rethinking the original “Carrie”? But even then, it would violate the Stephen King fans who deserve respect. If there ever was a project doomed for failure this is the one, unless it is a remake of “Gone With the Wind”. Stephen King is very hard to film, so why take on a film that had done as much credit to the author as had “Carrie” 1976?

By the way, the TV version was a copy-cat but let Carrie live and told the story in flashbacks via a police investigation. Sorry to spoil it for you, but I, in fact, just did you a favor. It is a double yawn and a snore while “Carrie” 2013 is simply a yawn and a double eye blink.

“Carrie” 2013 is not a bad film or an insult to one’s artistic senses; it is just redundant. If the 1976 version had never been made, I might be praising it…but I can’t because “Carrie” (1976) is a horror classic even with its flaws and lack of technical sophistication and deserves respect.

If you think my review is boring and lacks entertaining venom (or praise), or is void of vivid prose, don’t blame me, blame “Carrie” 2013. It just simply left me empty and totally uninspired. Now that I have been forced to describe the experience, I think I will take a nap, without the slightest fear of a nightmare. “Carrie” 2013 was not a horror film, it was like reading the Cliff Notes of a classic novel but without a paper or a test looming.

So again, I ask again, “Why?”

“Carrie” (2013) deserves three bow ties out of five.