One of the best Stephen King adaptations around.

Rating: 8/10 (25 December 2005)

Carrie starts in a girls locker room (which, in my opinion as a bloke, is a good place to start) where the girls are getting changed & Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) is having a shower. As she soaps herself down she begins to bleed, she is having her first menstrual period but thinks she is bleeding to death as she knows nothing about what is happening to her because her strict fanatical religious mother Margaret (Piper Laurie) hasn't told her about the facts of life. The rest of the girls taunt & tease her, throwing tampons at her & laughing, the gym teacher Miss Collins (Betty Buckley) comes to Carrie's rescue. The Bates High School prom is fast approaching & the nasty mean Chris Hargensen (Nancy Allen) is barred from going, she blames Carrie & together with her boyfriend Billy Nolan (John Travolta) plans to gain a cruel revenge. Meanwhile Sue Snell (Amy Irving) feels sorry for Carrie & tells her boyfriend Tommy Ross (William Katt) to ask Carrie to the prom, he agrees & Carrie accepts despite strong protests from her loony mum. At the prom things go well to start with but Carrie is humiliated in front of the entire school by Chris, in a rage of anger Carrie uses her powers of telekinesis, the ability to move or change objects through the power of the mind, to gain some sweet revenge of her own...
Directed by Brian De Palma Carrie is a good horror film. The script by Lawrence D. Cohen is based on the 1974 novel by Stephen King which I have not read so I cannot compare them, in fact Carrie was King's very first novel & in turn became the first to be adapted into a film. Carrie is all about character's, feelings & it tries to say something meaningful, it's not an easy film to pigeonhole as it could be described as a horror, thriller, drama or fantasy with strong elements from all. Every emotion in the book is here, sadness, sorrow, pity, anger, hate, happiness, jealousy, fear & it even touches upon the taboo subject of child abuse. The film does a brilliant job at portraying these emotions so that you really care & feel for these people which makes what happens so much more meaningful. There is an 'Ugly Ducking' vibe to it as Carrie starts off shy, unhappy & suffers plenty of growing pains before she transforms into something different at the prom. Carrie is pretty slow going for the majority of it's 100 odd minute duration but this is essential as things build up superbly towards the climax where the horror really kicks in. I don't usually like slow character driven films but Carrie worked for me & I enjoyed it but don't expect a happy ending as Carrie is most definitely not a feel good film.
Director De Palma does a first class job here, the character's are brilliantly drawn & developed. He gives the film some style with a few really cool memorable shots like the dizzying spinning camera scene when it revolves around Carrie & Tommy for what seems like ages, the split screen effect at the climax where we see Carrie's anger as she dishes out some revenge &, of course, that opening shower scene... Forget about any violence or gore as that's not what Carrie is all about, just a few stabbings.
With a supposed budget of about $1,800,000 Carrie is well made throughout, good special effects, some nice stunts, good music & solid production values throughout. The acting is simply superb from everyone involved, Spacek is absolutely brilliant here & was rightly nominated for a best actress Oscar in '77 & Laurie was nominated for best supporting actress although neither won (I have no idea who did that year but they must have been good). A young John Travolta does well.
Carrie is a classic piece of horror that has impact & is quite a powerful watch, it's well made & stands up well even today although the slightly slow pace & lack of gory action may put some off. I'm sure you can get this cheap on DVD these days & it probably turns up on TV all the time too so there's no excuse not have seen, or see sometime in the near future, Carrie. Definitely worth watching.