One of DePalma's best

Rating: 10/10 (26 September 2001)

High school misfit Carrie (Sissy Spacek) unleashes her telekinetic fury on her tormentors. This was a huge hit in 1976 and scared me silly. It doesn't scare me now (except for the closing sequence), but I still think it's a good solid horror film beautifully handled by Brian De Palma. It moves quickly, has some beautiful imagery (everything is shot soft focus with muted color) and has almost uniformally good performances. The only bad one is by John Travolta way out of his depth playing a hood. Amy Irving (as a student who befriends Carrie), William Katt (with a very 70s afro), Nancy Allen (playing a real bitch), Betty Buckley (so young and full of energy) and P.J. Soles (silly but bearable) are all perfect. But Spacek is superb matched by Piper Laurie who is very scary and marvelous as her deranged, religious mother. Also the film is (by today's standards) very restrained in terms of blood and gore. And the final sequence will make you jump (also notice the cars in the background during that--they're moving backwards!) Only complaints--De Palma REALLY hates some of the high school kids--you feel like like he's working out some personal issues here. And did we really need the slow-mo shower sequence at the beginning? That aside--this is a great film. See it letter boxed.