Carrie

Rating: 10/10 (31 December 2005)

Director Brian De Palma (The Untouchables, Scarface) adapts the first Stephen King book to the screen very well indeed. It is a very convincing creepy story of a very troubled girl. Basically this is the story of Carrie White (Oscar nominated Sissy Spacek), the non-threatening (until threatened) girl that is horribly treated by other people. Carrie doesn't know it until she researches, but when she gets angry she can create incidents, i.e. telekinesis. Her psychotic religious mother Margaret (Oscar and Golden Globe nominated Piper Laurie) punishes her for some of the smallest things, that could be part of why she has developed this power too. Anyway, she goes to the prom, and she doesn't know it, but the girl who hates her most has planted a bucket of pig's blood above the stage, and she gets it poured over her head, during her winning moments as the prom's Queen, that is when Carrie goes insane. She makes doors close, people get electrocuted, ceilings collapse and kill people, and a car crash and blow up. When she gets home, her mother does too go insane, and ends up with her daughter having to kill her, and the house finally coming down on them. But it doesn't end there, there is a final moment where Carrie's mourner places flowers, and Carrie's bloody arm lunges out of the rubble, a nightmare, that probably haunts her for ages. Also starring Amy Irving as Sue Snell, William Katt as Tommy Ross, Betty Buckley as Miss Collins, young John Travolta as Billy Nolan, Halloween's P.J. Soles as Norma Watson and One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest's Sydney Lassick as Charlie Cheswick (same surname as Cuckoo's Nest). A very disturbing but brilliantly creepy film. It was number 46 on 100 Years, 100 Thrills, and it was number 27 on The 100 Greatest Scary Moments. Outstanding!