Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) is a bit of an outsider, to say the least. Thanks to her strict, religious mother Margaret (Piper Laurie) with her very sheltered upbringing, along with her quiet, reserved personality at school, she is constantly being singled out and picked on by all the other students.
In senior year, in the showers in the girls’ locker room after gym class, she gets her period for the first time. Given her extremely sheltered upbringing, even though she is nearly eighteen, she has no idea what is going on, and thinks she is dying. Crying out for help to the other girls doesn’t help, and they just pick on her even more, taking it a little too far this time.
Gym teacher Miss Collins (Betty Buckley) comes to Carrie’s aid, chastising the other girls for their horrible treatment of her, and sends Carrie home early.
When the other girls are given an ultimatum (attend a week’s detention or miss out on going to the prom), one of the main ringleaders Chris (Nancy Allen) spits the dummy and has to miss prom.
Furious, and blaming Carrie for her problems, she hatches a plot with her boyfriend Billy (John Travolta) to humiliate Carrie in front of the entire class at the prom.
Meanwhile, there is something else going on with Carrie. Every time she gets angry or upset or scared, she discovers she can move objects with her mind. She looks into it in the school library, and discovers she has powers of telekinesis. Naturally, this doesn’t sit well with her self-righteous religious mother, whose discipline largely consists of beating Carrie, locking her in a closet and screaming at her to pray for forgiveness.
Only one student, Sue Snell (Amy Irving), sticks up for Carrie, and tries to make her life better by convincing her boyfriend Tommy (William Katt) to invite Carrie to the prom.
But it is at the prom that everything goes wrong. I won’t tell you what happens, check it out for yourself.
Lawrence D. Cohen’s script is quite different in many places from King’s novel. Firstly, it is strongly suggested in the film that Carrie’s powers only begin to manifest themselves after the incident in the showers, in some way a result of her becoming a woman. In the novel, however, it is made quite clear that Carrie was in fact born this way, and things have been going wrong around her for her whole life, and that this is the reason for her mother being as overbearing as she is.
That is not the only difference between the novel and the film, but it is definitely the most obvious.
The score (by Pino Donaggio) is absolutely superb, consisting mainly of a collection of leitmotifs that recur throughout the film to highlight particular elements, and draw similarities between events that would otherwise not seem linked at all.
On the topic of superb crew members, I must mention the cinematography of this film, performed impeccably by Mario Tosi Isidore Mankofsky. The entire film is beautifully shot, with the few tender moments in the film handled with the utmost care and intimacy. Use of light and dark throughout is also done well, and the framing of every shot and every scene is almost perfect (certainly worth a look to any student of filmmaking).
Cast performances are varied in their level of ability, with Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie being the clear standouts without a doubt. The particular relationship between these two characters is brought to the fore in every interaction they have, and the character history is clearly present under the surface, done in a way that can only be accomplished by actors of great talent, which these two ladies most definitely are.
On the other hand, in the case of John Travolta for instance, I wonder whether he thought he was still in Grease; his character and personality doesn’t seem to differ at all from that of Danny Zuko, which is a shame, because I have seen Travolta in many other films where he seems to be able to handle himself well as an actor.
Brian de Palma, the director, has made a reasonably good film here. It may not be the best novel-to-film adaptation out there, but it still stands up as one of the best horror films of the twentieth century.
(A brief note: This film was remade with Chloë Grace Moretz in the title role, with Julianne Moore as her mother. This remake was a lot closer to the book, and in my opinion, a better film overall. I may still review this remake at some point, as it is different enough from the original to qualify as a new film).
8 out of 10.
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