The era of New Hollywood gave us many great films and that even includes large number of great horror films. Actually, those times could easily be described as the Golden Age of Horror Films. So many horror films had bigger budgets, bigger stars, larger creative freedom and artistic ambition, at least compared with cheap exploitation trash that goes for horror genre today. Probably the best example of such grand approach is Carrie, 1976 film directed by Brian De Palma, which is often seen as one of the best horror films of all times.
The plot, based on the debut novel by Stephen King, deals with Carrie White (played by Sissy Spacek), 16-year old girl whose plain looks, awkward demeanour and apparent lack of any social skills make her target of ridicule and bullying by fellow students in local high school. Situation for Carrie isn’t much better at home, where she is verbally and physically abused by her mother Margaret (played by Piper Laurie), crazed religious fanatic who tries to prevent her daughter from doing anything “sinful”. Because of that, Carrie never learned about certain biological facts like menstruation, and when she gets her first period in girls’ locker room at school, she panics only to be mercilessly mocked and abused by the clique of students led by popular and arrogant Chris Hargensen (played by Nancy Allen). The only person to come to her rescue is gym teacher Miss Collins (played by Betty Buckley) who punishes Chris by forbidding her attendance at prom. Carrie gradually gains some self-confidence, which coincides with her discovering telekinetic powers, and which would ultimately serve her well when she finally stands up to her mother and goes to prom against her wishes. In the meantime, Sue Snell (played by Amy Irving), one of the girls from Chris’ clique, is feeling remorse over bullying and talks her boyfriend Tommy Ross (played by William Katt) to serve as Carrie’s date at the prom. Chris, on the other hand, is infuriated by her absence from the prom and plots revenge against Carrie with her boyfriend Billy Nolan (played by John Travolta). That would take place at the prom in the form of carefully orchestrated and utterly humiliated prank. When the prank happens, Carrie succumbs to the rage that had been accumulating for years and uses her telekinetic powers with apocalyptic consequences.
Carrie is known as the first adaptation of Stepehen King’s literary work and start of very long and prolific cooperation between that writer and Hollywood. However, nobody should mistake his version of Carrie as Stephen King’s. It is, first and foremost, Brian De Palma’s film. De Palma and his screenwriter Lawrence D. Cohen take very liberal approach to King’s novel which allows De Palma to play with his trademark “baroque” style of film making that includes slow motion and split screen, monochromatic shots and the brilliant use of Hitchcockian techniques of creating suspense. De Palma’s skills are best seen in couple of brilliant scenes, which start with one of the most effective openings in the history of cinema. What starts as the ultimate male fantasy, in which camera in slow motion follows naked nubile girls, transforms into ugly reality when the first blood appears and instead we see naked and helpless protagonist being subjected to horrible abuse by her peers. De Palma does the same with the equally memorable prom scene, which starts as a dream for protagonist only to turn into ultimate nightmare, first for Carrie than for dozens of people suddenly faced with unstoppable, incomprehensible and utterly murderous rage. This is followed by the scene at White’s home that starts in a deceptively calm only to end with another round of violence, resulting in death clearly inspired by religious art. And, of course, there is the epilogue of Carrie, which provides interesting twist but also represents the most problematic aspect of this film. Well executed, by rather unnecessary, scene needlessly puts Carrie in the realm of exploitation horror and provides bad example to be used in countless other horror films, including De Palma’s own Dressed to Kill few years later.
De Palma’s talent was well-matched by talents of the cast. Sissy Spacek as Carrie played not only one of the best roles of her career, but also one of the most memorable roles in the history of cinema. She, as a woman in her late 20s, not only convincingly portrayed a teen character, but also brought a wide range of emotion – utter terror, absolute bliss, painful humiliation, murderous rage and regret. Spacek does so and succeeds in a very difficult task of creating sympathy for the character whose actions would ultimately result in deaths of innocent people. Spacek is well-matched by Piper Laurie, actress who had her career relaunched by this strong performance; she portrays utterly disdainful character but she gives Margaret conviction and zeal that would ultimately lead to one of the most effective yet unusual death scenes. Nancy Allen (who later became De Palma’s wife) is also effective as narcissistic arrogant psychopath whose actions would ultimately lead to apocalypse, just as Amy Irving is very good as imperfect character who remains one of the audience’s last links to normalcy. In many ways, Carrie is a women’s film and it is hard to reconcile it with accusation of misogyny levelled against De Palma during his career. In this film males are reduced to cannon fodder, and male actors don’t have much to do – Katt’s character is reduced to useless pretty boy while Travolta (who would soon become big star) is nothing more than second class henchman. Talents of the cast also matched by Italian composer Pino Donaggio who wrote simple but effective score, with couple nods to great Bernard Herrmann (originally slated to work in this film shortly before his death), author of music for Psycho, which is briefly used in couple scenes of this film.
Carrie is a effective today as it was during premiere because, despite some fashion and music choices that might make it dated, it deals with universal themes, universal characters and universal plots. Furthermore, it is relatively short film in which emphasis on style usually prevents unnecessary content. Screenwriter very cleverly keeps telekinesis as a subplot, a mere tool rather than the emphasis of the film; Carrie’s real powers are displayed at the very end and only then the film starts to look like conventional horror. Until that it worked mostly as a disturbing coming of an age drama, where the real horror came from real people doing some mundane but very cruel and hurtful things to protagonist. The telekinetic horror that comes at the end is only its reflection. Carrie very cleverly doesn’t dwell on the origin or true nature of Carrie’s powers; unlike so many horror films from 1970s till this day, it avoids putting it in the framework of Christian or, to be more precise, Catholic theology. Instead, telekinesis is portrayed as rare, mysterious but ultimately natural phenomenon and Carrie learns about it by reading a book in library rather than being taught by a priest. This unusually secular approach to horror is one of many elements of Carrie that makes this film stand out among other examples of the genre. And, like all great films, it aged very well, easily putting its imitations and pointless remakes (like 2013 version) to well-deserved oblivion.
RATING: 8/10 (+++)
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