‘They’re all gonna laugh at you.’
Director: Brian De Palma
Cast: Sissy Spacek, John Travolta, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving
Synopsis: A young schoolgirl’s emotional abuse at the hands of her classmates comes to a head after a particularly cruel prank at the high school prom – leading to an event of horrific proportions.
You may notice a key similarity between this article and my other contribution to our HalloweenFest. No, not just that they’re both from the 70s. It’s that neither resorts particularly to having to make its audience jump at every other moment; rather, both exploit a slow, tense build-up to a horrifying (and classic) climax.
Indeed, both THE WICKER MAN and CARRIE have offered us two of the finest, and most classic, finales in horror cinema. But where the former is an original screenplay by Robin Hardy, CARRIE was adapted from a Stephen King novel by Brian De Palma. Does this give it any less credence? Not in the slightest. The final, blood-soaked scenes of CARRIE are just as haunting and present in my mind now as the first time I saw them.
The film follows its titular heroine, played by Sissy Spacek; a young, reserved girl who faces constant abuse from her classmates. This build-up reaches an agonising climax when a cruel prank by John Travolta (of all people) pushes Carrie over the edge at the prom. Suddenly everything’s flying everywhere, people are screaming, and whaddayaknow, Carrie has telekinesis!
What Carrie also has is a ridiculously fundamentalist Christian mother, Margaret (Piper Laurie). If you haven’t seen CARRIE, allow me to fill you in on just how ridiculously fundamentalist Margaret is: when Carrie experiences her first period, her mother proclaims it to be the ‘curse of blood’, a punishment for sinning, and locks the young girl in a cupboard.
So Carrie’s problems aren’t just in the schoolyard, then. It’s a classic tale of good kids gone bad, done so many times since CARRIE (and soon to be done again in the Chloe Grace Moretz-starring remake, due next year). But the performances and directorial vision of CARRIE place it a cut above the rest; the shocking imagery and sublime work of Sissy Spacek combining to make for the iconic still you can see used in the main image above. This is perhaps the most well-known photograph associated with CARRIE, as emphasised by the fact that while it essentially spoils the climax of the flick to an extent, its recreation for next year’s remake was among the first images released to promote it:
Like THE WICKER MAN three years previously, CARRIE, under the fantastic direction of Brian De Palma, not only set many precedents of horror in its tense build up, but also set precedents of the awkward-high-school-teen-gets-revenge genre (which I definitely didn’t just make up right now). It also managed to become a horror classic in its own right, which only cements its place in THN’s HalloweenFest.
If you haven’t seen it, make sure you do before the remake. Not because I expect the remake to be terrible – Moretz is usually a sign of good things to come – but because the original is usually always better. And this is a film that needs to be seen.
Horror Highlights: While Carrie’s outburst at the prom could easily contend for this prize, my nomination has to go to the moments just before she’s covered head to toe in pig’s blood. The plot creeps slowly to this climactic moment at a superb pace – creating a terrifyingly tense atmosphere, which juxtaposes completely with Carrie and her date celebrate winning Prom King and Queen.
Spookiest Scare: Right in the last moment, CARRIE resorts to a cheap shock, with a hand lurching out of the rubble of the demolished house to grab at Sue’s wrist. It’s a fright, sure, and leaves us on edge even while the credits roll – but again, it’s not the obvious contender for the category that nicks the award, but the moments preceding; namely, Carrie’s confrontation with her mother. We can guess what’s coming, but again, the tension leading up to what does occur keeps us on edge just as well as any hand bursting from some dirt.
Scare yourself silly with the rest of THN’s HalloweenFest choices right here.
