Strong middle

Rating: 7/10 (23 August 2015)

The first half hour of this is really weak. It's hard to connect or sympathize with Carrie because we just don't get to know her enough to like her, in all her scenes here she's either acting weird or being tormented by her cartoon mother (I can't believe Piper Laurie got an Oscar nomination for this), and the Nancy Allen character's hatred of her isn't really believable. I like Brian De Palma all right, but subtlety definitely isn't his forte.
But once we get past this and Tommy asks her out, the movie gets a lot better, we actually get to spend some time with Carrie and get invested in her. Everything for the next 40 minutes is very compelling, from the slaughtering of the pigs to the prom, and the suspense in the scene where the bucket of blood teeters over her head is just great. During the last 20 minutes when Carrie gets her revenge, a lot of scenes seem really dragged out, especially when Carrie gets to her house and heads for the tub.