Carrie
Carrie is one of those kinds of movies that has the right balance of blood, kills, great acting, and a decent storyline. I would say it’s one of my favorite Stephen King adaptations. It's the kind of movie that should make you be nice to people in high school. You never know what they are going through and what they could end up doing.
PLOT:
Carrie White, a shy, friendless teenage girl who is sheltered by her domineering, religious mother, unleashes her telekinetic powers after being humiliated by her classmates at her senior prom.
Photo Credit: Red Bank Films
Released: Nov 16, 1976
Runtime: 98 mins
Director: Brian De Palma
Writer: Stephen King, Lawrence D. Cohen
Actors: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving
MY THOUGHTS
He's gonna laugh at you. They're all gonna laugh at you!--Margaret White
There’s no doubt there are a LOT of kills in Carrie! And all with differing styles of kills. Unfortunately the lamest kill, in my opinion, is Tommy’s. A bucket. Really? I wish Chris had a better death though. And by better I mean gruesome. She was horrible. For best death there is no doubt Margaret White’s death. Very creative and justified. As far as blood, we all know that scene with the pig’s blood at the prom. So there will be blood.
This is your warning if you are an animal lover or don’t like animal kills in movies. There is a scene where a pig gets killed. You don’t see the animal die but you understand what is happening. And then the blood at the prom. You’ve now been warned.
The acting in Carrie is great. With the likes of Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, John Travolta, William Katt, Nancy Allen, and P.J. Soles.
Starting with Sissy Spacek (also known for The Man with Two Brains, The Ring Two, An American Haunting, and a lot of non-genre movies) as Carrie, the bullied teen who discovers her telekinetic powers at the worst possible time. Spacek did a great job convincing the viewers that she was going through a lot (with a domineering, religious mother and some very mean fellow classmates who constantly bullied her). When she loses it, she LOSES it.
Next we have Piper Laurie (also known for Twin Peaks, The Faculty, and a lot of non-genre movies and television shows) as Margaret White, Carrie's very religious and abusive mother. We see her descend into madness when Carrie decides to go to the prom. I did feel a little bad for her when she explains how her husband raped her and that’s how she conceived Carrie. But that doesn’t excuse the abuse she inflicts on Carrie.
We also have Amy Irving (known for The Fury, The Rage: Carrie 2, and Hide and Seek) as nice girl Sue who feels bad for Carrie, and P.J. Soles (known for Halloween, , Halloween 2018, Uncle Sam, The Devil’s Rejects, and The Tooth Fairy) as mean girl Norma.
As far as the guys go, we have John Travolta (known for Pulp Fiction, Battlefield Earth. But do I really need to name his movies?) as Billy, the boyfriend of Chris who kills a pig. And William Katt (known for House, House IV, Alien Vs Hunter, and Mirrors 2) plays Tommy, Sue’s nice boyfriend who takes Carrie to the prom.
Finally, I’m mentioning Nancy Allen (known for The Philadelphia Experiment, Robocop, Poltergeist 3, and Children of the Corn 666) last. She plays Chris, one of the main bullies. She goes above and beyond in her torment of Carrie. She comes up with the plan for the pigs blood. But, she’s worse than the typical high school popular kid bully. She’s just evil. When Chris, Billy, and his friends break into the pig farm she shows her true colors. When Billy kills the pig, Chris is gleefully urging Billy to kill the pig, with this psychotic look on her face. Yep, she is evil. I have no doubt if she didn’t die in the end she would have ruined a lot more people’s lives.
We start Carrie at a low point in school. The volleyball team she was on loses because of her. Then in the locker room she gets her first period and doesn’t realize what it was. All the girls start teasing her and throwing tampons at her. We next see her at home and realize her home isn’t much better. Her mother locks her in a closet and she must pray and read the bible. Overall, Carrie has a sucky life.
One of the girls feels bad for her and talks her boyfriend into asking Carrie to go to the prom. Eventually she agrees to go. What starts off as a good, ends in horror. One of the girls who bullies her, is told she can’t go to the prom now and she vows revenge. This revenge causes Carrie to go on a murderous rampage.
Overall, this is a really good movie on how a young bullied teen can descend into madness when she doesn’t have good people around her to stop or even help her. There’s an overly long shower scene at the beginning which will give you all the full frontal nudity you would want. Add in the copious amount of blood (mostly pig blood) and religious horror and you are set with a good movie in Carrie. I definitely would recommend this movie if you haven’t seen it.
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And now for your Forever Final Girl Exclusive…Did you know?:
When Sissy Spacek was preparing for her character, she isolated herself from the rest of the cast, decorated her dressing room with heavy religious stuff and studied an illustrated Bible.
While filming the bloody prom sequence, Sissy Spacek's trailer was parked behind the set. After being covered in fake blood, for continuity purposes, Spacek refused to wash the effect off. She elected instead to sleep in her bloody clothes for three days of filming.
Nancy Allen claims she never realized her character was going to be so evil until she saw the finished film. She thought she and John Travolta were playing such self-centered, bickering morons that they were there for comic relief. Piper Laurie also thought the character of Margaret White was so over the top that the film had to be a comedy.
Sue Snell and her mother Eleanor are played by real life daughter and mother Amy Irving and Priscilla Pointer.
The dizzying camera shot during the prom scene was achieved by placing William Katt and Sissy Spacek on a platform that was spinning in one direction, while the camera was being dollied in the opposite direction.
During filming of the scene where Miss Collins is chewing out the girls in the gym, Brian De Palma was standing behind Amy Irving just off screen and whispering cruel and hurtful things into her ears in order to make Sue's look of misery and guilt on camera look genuine.
While speaking at a book event in Fort Myers, Florida in 2010, Stephen King recalled that he was paid just $2,500 for the movie rights to Carrie, which may seem like a pittance, but he has no regrets. "I was fortunate to have that happen to my first book," King said.
This was John Travolta's first major film role. Carrie was also Amy Irving and Edie McClurg’s film debut.
The boy on the bike was played by Brian De Palma's nephew Cameron.
The four-note violin theme from Psycho is used several times in the film.
Entertainment Weekly ranked this as the 15th scariest movie of all time.
Two different versions of the locker room scene air on TV -- both are edited versions of the theatrical cut of the scene, complete with red credits offset across the screen. In the more widely seen one, the nudity is completely blurred out with strategically placed fogging. A second version is sometimes seen which features some light fogging and Nancy Allen covered by bra and panties which were animated onto her nude body.
Let’s get into the rankings:
Kills/Blood/Gore: 4/5
Sex/Nudity: 2/5
Scare factor: 4.5/5
Enjoyment factor: 5/5
My Rank: 4/5
IMDB: 7.4/10
Rotten Tomatoes: critics: 9.3/10 audience: 7.7/10
Letterboxd: 3.8/5
Check out my other reviews here: Forever Final Girl
