"I should have given you to God when you were born! "
--Margaret White
Brian De Palma's work has often been accused of being a pale imitation of Alfred Hitchcock's, if not a downright rip-off. That may be true sometimes, but in this case, we prefer to see it as a great director paying homage to another. Carrie may be his greatest work. This terrifying tale of an awkward and withdrawn girl with special powers, combines horror with humor and a poignancy rarely found in horror films. It is an extremely satisfying film on many levels... a modern classic.
Sissy Spacek plays Carrie White, a teenager with secret telekinetic powers who attends
Bates High School. In the shower at school, she gets her period for the first time, and the
sight of her own blood terrifies her. The other girls, who already consider Carrie an
outcast, tease her by throwing tampons at her. The gym teacher, Miss Collins (Betty
Buckley), arrives and vows to punish Carrie's tormentors. The school principal tries to
comfort Carrie. But when he continuously mispronounces her name, Carrie makes his
ashtray flip over and runs out. She is sent home early and enters her house just as her
mother, Maragaret (Piper Laurie), is talking to a school official. Mrs. White is a religious
fanatic, who constantly warns her daughter to stay away from boys. Carrie tells her
mother that she should have been told to expect her menstruation and Mrs. White locks
her in a closet, telling her to pray for forgiveness. When Carrie gets out, she goes up to
her room. Crying and looking into the mirror, the glass suddenly shatters.
At school, Miss Collins put the girls in Carrie's class in detention and through some
rigorous exercises to punish them. She also tells them that she should have their prom
tickets refused. One of the girls, Chris Hargenson (Nancy Allen), is furious and she lashes
out at the teacher. Miss Collins smacks her and tells her that she is forbidden from
attending the prom. Chris vows revenge.
Sue Snell (Amy Irving) feels bad about what happened. She convinces her boyfriend
Tommy Ross (William Katt) to take Carrie to the prom. Carrie is surprised and suspicious
at first, but Miss Collins tells her she should go. The teacher isn't sure of Sue's intentions
at first, but the girl appears to be sincere. Carrie agrees to the invitation. In the meantime,
she's been going to the library to read up on ESP and telekenisis. She's become aware of
some kind of power that she has. On one occasion, using her mind, she knocked a kid off
his bike when he began teasing her.
Out on the town with her boyfriend Billy Nolan (John Travolta), Chris enlists his help in
getting back at Carrie. With a couple of friends in tow, they go to a pig farm where Billy
savagely slaughters one of the animals. They take it's blood and put it in a bucket, which
Billy and Chris then put over the stage at the gym.
Mrs. White is adamantly against Carrie going to the prom. At dinner she refuses to give
her permission and warns her daughter about boys and their intentions. Carrie tells her that
she's not like the other kids, and that she's been reading about her power. Her mother says
that it's the devil's work. But Carrie is determined and tells her mother that "things are
gonna change around here."
The night of the prom arrives. Carrie has made her own dress, and she looks lovely. Mrs.
White again tries to keep her from attending and tells her that the kids are all going to
laugh at her. Tommy arrives in his car and picks Carrie up. At the prom, Carrie looks
radiant. Miss Collins is happy to see her, and the other students are impressed. The happy
couple do a slow dance, and Carrie is having a wonderul time. Tommy, who initially was
only doing a favor for Sue, looks smitten. Sue chooses to not offically go to the prom, but
she sneeks in to watch Carrie's happy evening. The time comes to pick the king and queen.
Unbeknownst to most of the students, the ballots have been rigged in order to get Carrie
and Tommy on the stage.
Billy and Chris are under the staircase, holding a rope attached to the bucket of blood.
Sure enough, Carrie and Tommy win the titles and ascend to the stage. While up there,
Sue notices something wrong. She tries to warn Carrie, but Miss Collins thinks that she's
just starting trouble and locks her out. It's too late, and the bucket of blood is dropped on
Carrie, with everyone looking on. There is a hushed silence in the crowd. The bucket falls
on Tommy's head and knocks him out. Humiliated, Carrie looks out at the students and
faculty only to see them laughing at her. (This may or may not be in her mind.) Hearing
her mother's protests, she becomes vengeful and uses her powers to lock the school doors
and start an electrical fire. Everyone is killed, except for Sue, in one of the most dazzling
mass murders ever filmed. Even Miss Collins dies.
Carrie walks out of the school, leaving the building ablaze. As she is going home, Chris
and Billy are driving by and see her. They try to run her over, but Carrie turns around and
makes the car blow up. When she gets home, she sees that her mother has lit hundreds of
candles and put them all over the house. She takes a bath and washes the blood off. When
she sees her mother, she tells her that she was right... she never should have gone to the
prom. As they are praying together, Mrs. White produces an enormous carving knife and
tells Carrie that she must pay for her sins with her life. She stabs her daughter in the back.
Carrie summons her powers as her mother is about to attack her again, and makes the
knives and forks on a wall rack fly across the room and into her Mrs. White's body. The
house then falls apart and bursts into flames. Both Carrie and her mother die.
In the last scene, Sue has a nightmare - she dreams of placing a bouquet of flowers on
Carrie's grave, when suddenly Carrie's bloody hand reaches out and grabs her. That final
dream sequence was to become a staple of horror films such as Friday the 13th. A final
jolt for an audience already reeling from the horror before it.
There are a couple of facts about Carrie which might be of interest to viewers of the
movie. Brian De Palma originally wanted Sissy Spacek to play Chris, the snooty girl. But
Spacek had other ideas, and showed up at the audition wearing a dress her mother had
made for her when she was in the seventh grade. She looked so awkward, she was given
the title role instead.
Carrie was a comeback for Piper Laurie, who hadn't made a film since The Hustler in 1961. Says Laurie about working on the film, "It was so much fun. We all roared with laughter at the end of the day, especially the day I got it with all those knives." (What a nice sentiment to hear, especially in this day and age when all you read about is how difficult it was for actors to make their movie, or about the egos and catfights which erupt on the sets.) The only trouble on this production it seems, was that the fake blood that was dropped on Spacek, kept drying and adhering to her skin because of the hot lights. The solution was to hose her down with water when the substance turned gluey. For the last scene, Spacek herself was buried under the rubble. She recalls that it was claustrophobic, but also exciting. She says "The funny thing to me in that scene is that here's Amy Irving just looking so beautiful and serene, and here I am buried with my hand sticking up...I love that scene."
