Carrie

Plot synopsis:
The film begins in the locker-room fill of teenage girls, including Carrie White (Sissy Spacek). Carrie gets her first period, and after becoming distressed, cries out for help. Instead of helping, the other girls ridicule and harass her, throwing out tampons, sanitary towels and toilet paper to her. Teacher Miss Collins (Betty Buckley) rushes in to stop the commotion. White, who appears to be bottling extreme rage, snaps a light bulb. After questioning Carrie, Miss Collins realizes that Carrie is unaware of the concept of menstruation. Because of this, Miss Collins asks the school principal to excuse Carrie from gym class for a week because of the trauma. Upon her way home, Carrie uses her recently discovered telekinesis to stop a boy from teasing her. While at home, Carrie is tormented by her delusional mother (Piper Laurie), who locks Carrie in a closet and forces her to pray--she believes that Carrie received her period due to sinning.Miss Collins, still livid about the incident, berates the other girls and forces them through a detention, deliberately physically exhausting them. The leader of the clique, Chris Hargensen (Nancy Allen), refuses to participate, and as punishment, is banned from the upcoming prom. Furious, she blames Carrie for her misfortune. Meanwhile, another one of the girls, Sue Snell (Amy Irving), feels guilty about her part in teasing Carrie, so she asks her boyfriend, Tommy Ross (William Katt), to take Carrie to the prom. Tommy begrudgingly agrees. After Tommy asks her to the prom, Carrie refuses, thinking that yet another trick is being played on her. After a comforting pep talk with Miss Collins, and after Tommy's further insistence, Carrie finally agrees to go to the prom with Tommy.While everyone else is getting ready for the prom, Chris schemes with her boyfriend Billy Nolan (John Travolta) and best friend Norma (P.J. Soles) to get revenge on Carrie. They go to a farm and slaughter some pigs, drain their blood into a bucket, and place the bucket on one of the rafters in the school gym. Carrie asks her mother's permission to go to the prom. Her mother becomes unhinged at the suggestion, commenting that Tommy is only after her for sex and that this will lead her down a road to perpetual sin. This leads to a violent argument between Carrie and her mother; who uses her telekinesis to slam windows and doors in her home. After another fight between Carrie and her mother the night of the prom, Carrie uses her powers to push her mother into a bed and tells her that she must stop worrying.Carrie and Tommy arrive at the prom, and Carrie begins to feel accepted by Tommy's peers. Miss Collins relates to Carrie the story of her own prom, telling her she should cherish the memory forever. Carrie and Tommy dance together; Tommy has since fallen for Carrie and kisses her.As per Chris' instructions, Norma and some of Billy's friends fix the ballots so that Carrie and Tommy are elected prom king and queen. They make their way to the stage, and Carrie finally feels what its like to be accepted.Meanwhile, Sue sneaks into the prom and sees Chris and Billy under the stage. She realizes their plan: Chris is going to yank a cord and dump the pig's blood all over Carrie as she is declared prom queen. Sue rushes toward the stage frantically, but is intercepted by Miss Collins, who thinks that Sue is out to make trouble for Carrie after seeing that Carrie and Tommy are together. Miss Collins throws her out of the gym, thinking that she was to spoil Carrie's momentum. At that exact moment, Chris yanks the cord, drenching Carrie in pig's blood.The students gasp and look on in horror. Tommy is furious, but the bucket falls and knocks him unconscious. Carrie snaps and imagines that all of the students and faculty are actually laughing at her, which her mother had warned her would happen. Carrie uses her telekinesis to destroy the gym and kill her peers and teachers, including Miss Collins. As Carrie walks home, a firetruck is seen passing her. Chris and Billy, who safely witnessed Carrie cause the death of the entire student body, attempt to run Carrie over with Billy's car. Carrie uses her telekinesis to destroy the car.When Carrie returns home, she draws a bath. After she cleaned herself, her mother appears, and tells her she was the result of a strange marital rape. Then, convinced that her daughter is an evil witch, she takes out a chopping knife and stabs Carrie in the back. Carrie falls down the stairs and stumbles away from her mother. When her mother corners her in the kitchen, Carrie uses her power to crucify her mother with kitchen knives & tools. After the death, Carrie becomes wrought with guilt, and using the lit candles, sets her house ablaze. The home eventually collapses and Carrie dies amongst the debris.Some time later, Sue, having survived the prom night catastrophe, is suffering from depression over the death of her peers. She experiences a nightmare in which she visits the location of Carrie's house. As she reaches down to put flowers on the burnt lot, Carrie's blood-stained hand reaches up from the rubble and grabs her. Sue then wakes up screaming in the arms of her mother.

Tags: comedy, fantasy, cruelty, suspenseful, gothic, murder, paranormal, dark, cult, violence, horror, atmospheric, insanity, romantic, tragedy, revenge, sadist, prank

Review:
It is a classic offbeat horror-melodrama merging harmoniously the family Gothic extravaganza, supernatural power, and a woman's movie of a peculiar kind It remains the cinema's best adaptation of a Stephen King novel The film initiated De Palma's inclination for surprise diverts between playful imagination and reality, as in the opening, which swifts from a soft-core porn fantasia of girls taking a shower in the locker room to the fact of Carrie's menstruation for the first timethe first sign of "otherness" that will reserve her as an horrifying monster from her small-minded colleagues All the oppression that Carrie undergoes both at home (with a bible beating maniacal mother played by scary Piper Laurie who develops twisted bizarre ideas) and at school to suppress tension which takes the shape of super telekinetic power, the ability to move objects with the strength of her mind We observe with ambivalence as Carrie's insatiable revenge jumps the line into uncontrolled mass murders ever filmed Sissy Spacek is amazing as the mocked, helpless girl pushed over the edge Her face and body twist like a living special effect to unleash her pent up rage, as well as her character's alarming progress from painfully shy high-school teenager to Angel of Vengeance.
Perhaps one of the only genuinely good Stephen King adaptations, Carrie' follows the tragic tale of Carrie White (Sissy Spacek), a young girl who is continually made to suffer at the hands of her bullying classmates and not helped by her overbearing, religious mother Margaret (Piper Laurie).
Carrie is played by Sissy Spacek in a performance of such power and strength that she received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress (the first actress ever to be nominated for a horror film; the second would be Sigourney Weaver for "Aliens")She manages to hit all the right notes.
Her performance is a real knockout and also garned an Oscar nomination (she should have won, but typical Academy genius set in and gave the prize to Beatrice Straight who was in "Network" for a whopping 10 minutes and really didn't do much.)Also, as a side note, this film also is a start for some future DePalma regulars such as John Travolta (his first major studio film) and Nancy Allen (her first major role)What I really liked about "Carrie" is the absolutely perfect ending.
Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie deservedly have been singled out for praise, but DePalma even managed to get the right performance out of decidedly untalented performers like Nancy Allen, William Katt (who is immeasurably aided by the kind of meticulous lighting that would have made Joan Crawford envious), and P.J. Soles.Buckley deserves special mention, because she does amazing things with a completely underwritten role.
Spacek's performance in the lead is flawless; Piper Laurie exceptional as her deranged mother (it was her comeback role, Oscar-nominated, yet it nearly typed her as a horror-movie actress); Nancy Allen, P.J. Soles, and William Katt are excellent as Carrie's classmates; Amy Irving is intriguing as schoolmate Sue who just wants to do the right thing (Pauline Kael of The New Yorker complained that Sue's role in the disaster wasn't made clear, but I disagree.
Now this Stephen King's horror classic has been confirmed for a remake which stars Chloë Grace Moretz and my diva Julianne Moore (highly likely to take on the role of the religion- maniac mother), both reinterpret two Oscar-nominated performances from Spacek and Laurie, with the juicy fodder, a belated Oscar finally seems to be approaching for my goddess (finger crossed).
The mother-daughter face-off and subsequent house caving into debris scenes may be attributed to produce a more crowd-please impression (despite of its low-budget SFX and the well-expected surprise at the coda), the film could hardly be pigeonholed as a horrorfest, as Carrie is ubiquitous in every school, every class, a bully-defying story has much more drama empathy even after 35 years after its debut, which could nicely explain the ground for a remake now.
Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) is a misunderstood young high schooler with a freakishly obsessive Catholic mother (an amazing performance by Piper Laurie) who borders on Neo-Nazi.
But when Chris and her dimwitted boyfriend Billy (John Travolta's second role) devise a horrible and humiliating prank, they don't take into account what has manifested inside of Carrie after all those years of torment, and how it will effect them in the films horrifying and very memorable climax.Brian De Palma's famous horror film, adapted from Stephen King's chilling novel, is often noted as the ultimate in teenage revenge films.
Meanwhile, the rest of the cast does a wonderful job, and keeps you on your feet with Betty Buckly, Nancy Allen, who does a wonderful job portraying your classic, high-school bully, Amy Irving, as the kind-hearted, but misguided, Sue Snell, William Katt, as Tommy, Sues kind-hearted boyfriend, Jon Travolter, as Billy, and PJ Soles, who always shines no matter what role she is playing.Watch Carrie today!.
I, being a film buff, I could see Brian De Palma took pages from film making textbooks by emulating German Expressionist movies for lighting to create horror and Citizen Kane and 2001: A Sace Oddysey for using music as an alternative to tell the story.The cast in the movie is excellent and they all have great played their roles really well.
Carrie (1976) is one of the classic horror films of our time, written by Stephen King and brought to film by Brian De Palma.The story is about a plain young girl called Carrie who's old fashioned and cant fit in no matter how hard she tries, she has no friends and constantly gets bullied and harassed by all the other girls at her school.But what nobody knows is that Carrie is a very special girl with powers that can cause devastating force!!!
William Katt and Nancy Allen are also strong in the supporting roles as the school hunk and most popular girl (bitch).Carrie also scores highly for it's excellent ending, one of the best in horror movie history!!
A young, abused and timid 17-year-old girl (Sissy Spacek) discovers she has telekinesis, and gets pushed to the limit on the night of her school's prom by a humiliating prank.There seems to be little reason to review this film.
This once-shy teen decides to use her powers for revenge.Directed by Brain DePalma (Blow Out, Dressed to Kill, The Untouchables) made an scary, often creepy horror movie with terrific performances by Oscar-Nominated performances by Spacek and Laurie.
Today the film is recognized as a horror classic while Mr. King hasn't done too bad for himself either.The title character is a high-school outcast with a religious fanatic for a mother.
Upon watching Carrie for the very first time in today's modern age one wishes that it were possible to go back and witness the film in a packed cinema screening upon release for it would have been a grand and previously unseen experience, for Carrie is a film that feels ahead of it's time and stands the test of age to still be shocking and frightfully spot on in it's depiction of teenage isolation and discovery of oneself.Carrie needs no real introduction as many know the story of bullied social outcast Carrie White, played so well by the then 26 year old Sissy Spacek.
The film also features early performances from John Travolta as idiotic teen Billy Nolan and Nancy Allen as evil school girl Chris.Much of Carrie's success must be related back to director Brian De Palma who directs the film with that voyeuristic style that made him famous in films such as Dressed to Kill and Body Double.
The film tells the tragic tale of Carrie White (played marvelously by Sissy Spacek) a mousy abused girl who suffers endless torment at the hands of her classmates and fanatically religious mother (Piper Laurie who's also incredible).
Little does everyone know Carrie's dark secret: She is Telekinetic and once the prank is pulled, a holocaust of destruction is released like non ever seen before.This Classic from the 70's is flawless in every way; the acting is all top notch the effects are remarkable and the ending is haunting and tragic at the same time.
It all boils down to a blood-drenched, special effects-laden climax at the school prom.There are others who care for Carrie: a fellow classmate named Sue (Amy Irving), her friend Tommy Ross (golden boy William Katt), and a sympathetic gym teacher (Betty Buckley).
That it's fun, and funny, at different times also puts it a notch above other genre material (certainly above other King adaptations about the mawkish loner with special powers).Sissy Spacek is in a career-making performance as Carrie, the awkward girl that everybody in school (at least all of the juvenile teen girls in gym class) teases to no end, who's own paralyzed way of being among people works against her.
After an accident in the girl's shower, to which taunting reaches a high peak, all of the girls (including the likes of PJ Soles, Amy Irving, and the very sexy b*tch Chris played by Nancy Allen) get detention under the only one who really cares for Carrie (Betty Buckley), and so the girls plot revenge involving the senior prom and a bucket of pig's blood.
Excellent big screen version of author Stephen King's first novel is not only a suspenseful teen drama, but a touching character study too.Social misfit spends her days mocked by her classmates and harassed by her fanatically religious mother, then she discovers that she has the power of telekinesis...Director Brian De Palma made a number of top-notch suspense thrillers during the 70's and Carrie is surely one of his finest works.
Supporting cast Nancy Allen, John Travolta, and Betty Buckley also turn in good performances.Carrie is a classic that should be appreciated by all film lovers, not just those that enjoy the horror genre.
De Palma utilises the incoming end of school prom night dance as a looming deadline, in turn transforming everything into a shrill, and at times agonised, low level drama which happens to mutate into domains of the uncanny when great levels of frustration and anger boil up.The film is essentially one big build up to the prank-of-all-pranks that the bullies, lead by the aforementioned Sue and her partner Billy, who himself isn't shy of getting stuck into a hair-raising situation when we observe him out drinking and driving at once with the verbal confirmation that police cars are buzzing around, aim to play on Carrie at the end of school dance.
Poetically filmed and sharply drawn as a character study, it introduced moviegoers everywhere to one of the finest actresses of our era (Sissy Spacek), gave a career-defining role to a fine actress (Piper Laurie) whose talent and name would probably be forgotten by now were it not for this film, was the first true exhibition of John Travolta's enormous screen charisma and jump-started the careers of an impressive line-up of unknown actors (Betty Buckley, P.J. Soles, William Katt, Nancy Allen and Amy Irving).
Piper Laurie is absolutely sensational in this role--deliberately over-the-top in a chilling yet darkly funny performance which should have won an Oscar for supporting actress but lost out to Beatrice Straight's two-scene cameo crying and screaming jag in "Network."  (Of course, as wicked as this performance is, it's amazing the staid Academy saw fit to nominate it in the first place.)  After Miss Collins, the well-meaning gym teacher (future Broadway diva Betty Buckley), berates the class for torturing poor Carrie, and humiliates evil Chris Hargensen (Nancy Allen, gloriously naked in the memorable opening locker room sequence) in the process, she unwittingly sets in motion the tragic turn of events:  Chris and boyfriend Billy (Travolta) plot revenge on Carrie, while Sue Snell (Amy Irving), feeling guilty for her part in the incident, talks her boyfriend Tommy (Katt) into taking Carrie to the prom, hoping she'll finally come out of her shell and fit in.
And just to illustrate how cheap and sleazy it could have been in lesser hands, simply screen the awful sequel "The Rage--Carrie 2" and watch how Sue Snell's character is despicably trashed for a cheap thrill, or try to sit through the botched TV-movie remake which is as bad as this one is great and you'll see the difference is all in Brian DePalma--a director who has since had a spotty career but for one glorious moment put it all together to create a masterpiece.
I respect her work and her as an actress.Sissy Spacek is the only thing that keeps "Carrie" from being another run-of-the-mill horror film with a few good ideas and an empathetic title character.
Carrie is one of the greatest Horror Films ever made,an Excellent,Scary and suspenseful Horror classic that is filled with amazing direction,great performances from Sissy Spacek and the rest of the cast,a fantastic script and a beautiful,haunting film score.
All those elements make Carrie a classic and Brian De Palma and Stephen King at their best.Based on Stephen King's novel of the same name,Carrie tells the story of Carrie White(Sissy Spacek),a quiet and shy 17-year-old girl who is bullied and tormented by her High School classmates and lives with her Mother Margaret White(Piper Laurie),a religious fanatic.
Carrie is an brilliant film from beginning to end and was an amazing breakthrough film for director Brian De Palma and Author Stephen King because it was the first big box office hit for De Palma and the first Stephen King adaptation to the big screen while also being one of the all time great Horror movie classics and one of the best Stephen King adaptations.
Piper Laurie is brilliant in her Oscar nominated role as Carrie's Mother Margaret White,with Laurie being scary,terrifying and having great scenes with Spacek.
Based on Stephen King's first novel, this film tells the story of a shy teenage girl named Carrie White(Sissy Spacek in an unforgettable performance) who is mocked and humiliated by her cruel schoolmates, though one of them takes pity on her, and has her popular boyfriend(William Katt) ask Carrie to the prom, which she accepts, but tragically Carrie's mother(Piper Laurie, quite good) is a psychopathic religious zealot who keeps Carrie locked in the closet as punishment for her "sins", but Carrie defies her, though two evil expelled classmates(played by Nancy Allen & John Travolta) plot a cruel prank on her at the prom, which pushes Carrie over the edge, and makes her use her latent telekinetic powers in merciless revenge...Fine performances and script compensate for some exploitive and obvious scare tactics in this memorable film, which elicits such sympathy for this unjustly put-upon girl that her rage at the end is understandable, though of course the poor girl is doomed....
Brian De Palma brings Stephen King's first novel to life as part coming-of-age drama, part obnoxious high school movie and part horror film in a way that's at times messy, but visually lasting and highly memorable.Unexpectedly, the film's title sequence takes place in a girls locker room where we get a barrage of full-frontal nudity followed by star Sissy Spacek erotically soaping herself in the shower and discovering that she's bleeding for the first time.
And her mother simply acts like a zealot, so by the time we finally start to understand her, it's too late.It's a stretch to call "Carrie" a horror film; most of it is an exercise in effective foreshadow because we know all these circumstances will lead to something bad, but not until the end does it get a bit gruesome (though not nearly gruesome enough).
Piper Laurie is superb in an Oscar-nominated role (rare for a horror movie at the time) as Carrie's tormenting mother Margaret, who believes that her innocent girl is proof of her sinfulness.
Based on Stephen King's novel, "Carrie" is a classic horror film directed by Brian DePalma and one of the greatest movies from the 1970's that still echoes in our minds and in the popular culture.
And while I have never read the book itself, I can still say that this is one of the best films associated with both King and De Palma.Carrie is the story of a shy girl who is bullied in high school.
Over the past few decades, almost everything ever written by Stephen King has been filmed for either TV or the silver screen; however, very few of these adaptations have come close to matching the extremely high standard set by Carrie, the first King novel to receive the movie treatment.Directed by Brian De Palma, this superb supernatural horror stars Sissy Spacek as Carrie White, a shy and awkward teenage girl who is mercilessly bullied at high-school and further tormented at home by her overbearing, religious zealot mother (Piper Laurie).
To make matters worse, at the same time as Carrie experiences her first period (during the film's unforgettable opening shower sequence), she also discovers that she has developed telekinetic abilities that get more powerful but less controllable as she becomes increasingly distressed.When a group of spiteful classmates (led by the gorgeous Nancy Allen and a young John Travolta) implement a nasty plan to humiliate Carrie during prom night, the poor girl finally snaps and unleashes her full psychic wrath on the unsuspecting revellers.Determined to impress with his first major Hollywood movie, director De Palma pulls out all the stops to bring Lawrence D.
It was THE long-shot at the big time for a cast of virtual unknowns: Sissy Spacek as the tortured title character; Piper Laurie, leaving semi-retirement to play religious fanatic Margaret White, Carrie's mother; Nancy Allen (a future Mrs. de Palma) and P.J. Soles as Chris and Norma respectively; Broadway and film star Betty Buckley playing the sympathetic gym teacher Miss Collins; Amy Irving (one of the future Mrs. Steven Spielbergs) as Sue Snell, the only girl on Carrie's side; William Katt (THE GREATEST American HERO) as Tommy Ross, Sue's BMOC boyfriend and the key to Carrie's downfall; and in a cameo that would send his career skyrocketing, John Travolta as Chris Hargensen's lunk-headed boyfriend, Billy Nolen.
CARRIE (1976) ***1/2 Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, William Katt, Betty Buckley, John Travolta, Nancy Allen.