It should be illegal for October not to have a decent horror movie in theaters. October means Halloween, and most people want to be scared. Even another sequel to “Paranormal Activity” would provide a few good scares. The fact that the new version of “Carrie” is the only major horror movie in theaters right now is a great shame.

Simply put, “Carrie” is painfully dull for almost all of its runtime. It is theoretically a horror movie, but most of the time, it doesn’t even seem to be trying to scare the audience. In the precious few moments where it remembers that it’s a horror movie, it fails to elicit any kind of meaningful response.

The third film adaptation of a Stephen King novel, this new version of “Carrie” tells the same basic story as the rest. Carrie White (Chloë Grace Moretz) is a teenage girl who just can’t fit in at school. Her mother Margaret (Julianne Moore) is a mentally unstable, religious fanatic who prohibits her daughter from doing normal teenage things like hanging out with friends after school.

There is also the small issue of Carrie’s powerful psychic powers. She hones them throughout the story and finally unleashes them in the climactic prom scene, which was easily the most famous part of the previous film adaptations.

That scene is probably the only thing remotely worth seeing in this version of “Carrie.” The filmmakers must have thought it was the only thing audiences wanted to see, because they put the bare minimum amount of effort into every other scene. It is not the greatest scene in horror history, but seeing Carrie’s telekinetic mayhem is the only good part of this adaptation.

Everything before and after the climax is mind-numbingly boring. Most of the movie’s focus is on Carrie being bullied by the world’s most sinister teenagers. The final prank they pull on her is an iconic part of horror history, but it’s not very believable. Today’s teenagers would be more likely to make a Carrie parody Twitter account.

Moretz and Moore are both as good as ever in “Carrie,” but they are only doing the best they can with weak material. The wasted talent combined with an almost complete lack of compelling scenes makes it difficult to recommend “Carrie” to audiences wishing to see a scary movie in October.