Horrifying with a menacing tone

Rating: Null/10 (6 January 2011)

Carrie's opening scenes are truly disturbing. From the get to, De Palma creates an atmosphere of true dread. It's high school but it is still presented very seriously. the scenes of Carrie and her mother are perhaps the scariest in the film, thanks in part to the direction, but also because of the performances. Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie (who I liked seeing in Twin Peaks) are a tour de force here, and at times their scenes linger on true religious obsessions to the point of insanity. The film is never dull, and until the final climax it keeps you waiting. The slow- motion montage before the tragedy in the end is very suspenseful and makes you want to in a way be there to actually help the characters, and it frustrates. I am not sure if I liked the ending or not, but it remains that Carrie is obviously a very influential film and has one of the most unnerving tones I have seen in a horror film.