Excellent Storytelling

Rating: 10/10 (29 May 2000)

This is a classic film. So I had seen it before today. But I was a kid, and I seem to remember the shock-scary parts as the catalysts to my nightmares, and not much about the rest.
Today, I saw it again, armed with a huge backlog of movies. I have seen enough to discriminate the bad from the good, the mediocre from the excellent. And Carrie is certainly excellent.
OK, so the premise is at first glance a little weird and far-fetched, but hey, that's Stephen King. What Stephen King also does is to somehow get these far-fetched situations blended in with believable reality. He creates a sort of grey zone between horror and reality. I suppose that's what makes his books frightening enough to entertain millions.
Anyway, this is not a litterary review. Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) is a girl in her senior year of high school, raised by a fanatically christian woman (excellently played by a psycotically frizzy-haired Piper Laurie). She is teased and made fun of because of her naivety and oddness.
So, a stereotypical bitch girl in Carrie's class, looking hideously 70s right down to the 'who wears' short shorts, plots a nasty, nasty surprise for Carrie. Without giving too much away, this surprise comes right at a time when Carrie is truly happy, for the first time in her life.
It is in this classic scene, before and after the prank, that you see that Sissy Spacek is perfect as Carrie. She is introduced in the film as a shy, odd-looking, bland girl. Before the prank, she beams and smiles and she is beautiful. The change is truly remarkable. After the prank, well, she is pretty scary. All these attributes are contained perfectly within Spaceks appearance and acting. It's a shame we don't see her in more movies.
The storytelling, as I have said in my one-line summary, is excellent. The foreshadowing of the prank is subtely and deftly introduced, so that the viewer knows in advance what's going to happen. Everyone, it seems, knows. Everyone but Carrie. We feel sorry for her and are on her side afterwards as well. This is something of a feat to pull off in Hollywood's 'white-teeth-big-jaw-squeaky-clean-super-hero' ideal.
Carrie's internal development (excuse the pun) is paced just as well. Her growing rebellions against her mother, her realization that there is more to life than bible bashing...all the way through she blooms. The symbolism is perhaps a bit overstated in places (Who ever saw a Jesus figure that looked quite like that?) but is none the less quite effective, and drenches through the film appropriately.
Brian DePalma is excellent at making movies that appeal on many levels. As a kid, I liked the scary parts. My mother, whom I watched it with, enjoyed it for the human interaction and the bitchiness of the girls and their 'reward'. I, as I have pointed out, enjoyed the pacing and the whole imagery of the film. Something for everyone.
Oh, wait. There is one thing. The sight of Tommy Ross (William Katt) in his tuxedo is just awful. He is supposed to look sexy - the big catch at the prom - but his huge curly hair and the large lapels on his turqouise suit under his enourmous bow tie serve as a hideous reminder that the seventies were The Decade That Taste Forgot.