From Prom Night to Blood Bath

Rating: 8/10 (4 December 2015)

It's the night of her senior prom, and Carrie White and her date, Tommy have just been crowned as the prom royalty. As she waves to the crowd, Carrie finally feels accepted by her peers. But suddenly, a bucket of pig's blood is dumped on her, and the bucket falls on Tommy's head and knocks him unconscious. She imagines everyone is laughing at her, it was all a trick. She'll make them pay; they will all pay for what they did to her.
Carrie employs the conventions of both the supernatural thriller and the Shakespearean tragedy in order to illustrate the misguidedness and futility of religion. By portraying Carrie as an outcast, the film argues that though not inherently bad, even an ultimate good like religion can be a bad thing if taken too far. Finally, the film wants its audience to be wary of the pitfalls of not living in moderation, and just how far the influence of one person can go.
All in all, this film was fantastically executed, and still carries both a good message and a good story for modern viewers. It's easy to get lost in the film so long as you can look past the 70's clothes and cheesy special effects. The acting is also surprisingly good. Sissy Spacek is able to play an extremely convincing outcast, and Piper Laurie is able to play her psychotic character in such a way that the audience sympathizes with her. My only real complaint with this film is the sound played whenever Carrie uses her powers gets kind of grating after a while. It does add a good sense of tension, but don't watch it if you have a headache