mdtinney's Movie Review of Carrie (1976)

King+DePalma+Spacek= Masterpiece.
mdtinney - wrote on 09/17/09

I 1st saw thismovie when I was in my early teens and it scared me to death. It had such an Impact on me that I have since became a huge Stephen King fan and have read every one of his books at least 3 times. Combining his storytelling with DePalma's brilliant Direction created a masterpiece. "Carrie" is not your average horror story, so I'm warning those who haven't seen this and expect it to be some all-out horror film full of gore, because "Carrie" is quite different. It's more like a teenage drama-turned horror flick when the last thirty minutes come along. The film follows the basic story of the book, with a little bit of changes here and there, some things excluded. Carrie White is a nerdy teenage girl who is tormented by her high school peers. On top of that, she has a fanatical religious mother, who comes off more as crazy then holy. Carrie begins to realize she has a special power - if she concentrates enough, she can move objects with her mind. This is called "telekenesis". As prom nears, a girl named Sue Snell convinces her boyfriend to take Carrie to prom, to try and make up for a cruel incident that took place in the girl's locker room. But there are Chris Hargensen and her boyfriend, Tommy, have plans to turn Carrie's magical night into a night of horror - which turns out to be a night of horror for the entire student body. The acting here is great, Sissy Spacek is wonderful and Piper Laurie, who plays her mother, does a very good job at being genuinely scary. I saw this film at a young age and that image of Carrie's mother with the butcher knife still haunts me to this day. The whole sequence is scary, the creepy score accents Laurie's crazed performance. Sissy Spacek really garners some genuine pathos here, living the sheltered life with her religious fanatic mother, all of the girls at school treating her like an animal. I felt bad for her throughout the whole movie, even after she killed the whole prom. She suffers throughout the whole movie, so you really feel bad for her. "Carrie" is not a horror film for everyone. The majority of the film is more like a teenage drama, focusing on an outcast high school girl. But as tension builds in the film, in the last 30 minutes, all hell breaks loose. So if you aren't a fan of slow-building horror films, then you probably won't enjoy this. But for those who do, this is a classic. The end of the movie is one of the best endings ever.