Carrie (1976)

Carrie is a 1976 American horror film directed by Brian De Palma and written by Lawrence D. Cohen, based on the novel of the same name by prestigious horror writer Stephen King. The film and the novel deal with a socially outcast teenage girl, Carrie White, who discovers she possesses telekinetic/electric powers.

The film was a major success for United Artists, grossing over $30 million at the U.S. box office, on a budget of only $1.8 million. It received a mostly positive response from critics and received two Oscar nominations. The film spawned a sequel The Rage: Carrie 2 and a made for television remake, released in 2002, neither of which involved De Palma. During a survey taken in October 2008, it was revealed, that Carrie was considered one of the most popular movies teens watched on Halloween.

Carrie White, a shy, friendless teenage girl who is sheltered by her domineering, religious mother, unleashes her telekinetic powers after being humiliated by her classmates at her senior prom.

Plot
Carrie White is a shy teenage girl, who has telekinetic powers and lives with her mentally unstable, religiously obsessed mother, Margaret White. While playing a game of volleyball one day, she misses the ball and is told to "eat shit" by Chris "Christine" Hargensen, a popular bully in her class. The opening scene shows Carrie taking a shower and getting her first period in the shower after P.E class. The other girls tease Carrie by throwing tampons and sanitary napkins, as they yell "plug it up". The gym teacher, Miss Collins sees the commotion and demands to know what they're doing and is told that Carrie just got her period. Miss Collins tries to calm Carrie down, but Carrie is too hysterical. She smacks her and seconds later, an overhead light suddenly bursts. After Miss Collins sends the girls out, she realizes that Carrie is unaware of the concept of menstruation. One of the bullies, Sue Snell, stays, because she is paralyzed and disgusted by her own behavior.

Miss Collins explains to Principal Morton, what happened and the two try to make sense of it. Carrie is called into Mr. Morton's office to be dismissed for the day. Miss Collins tells her she can skip gym for a week and take study hall instead. When the principal repeatedly refers to her as "Cassie", Carrie seemingly makes an ashtray on his desk flip over onto the floor. On the way home, a young boy on a bicycle teases her by saying "creepy Carrie, creepy Carrie!" She retaliates by telekinetically making him fall off the bike. Margaret pays a visit to the Snell residence trying to spread the gospel. Mrs. Snell is not exactly receptive to an offer of a pamphlet called "The Teenager's Path to Salvation Through the Cross of Jesus". She gives Carrie's mother ten dollars to get rid of her. Margaret appears offended, she takes the money and goes on her way.



Margaret returns home and gets a call from school telling her what happened, as Carrie listens from her bedroom in the attic. When Margaret gets off the phone, she tells her daughter to come downstairs. Carrie asks, why she wasn't told about menstruation and Margaret knocks her in the head with a book. Margaret reads a chapter called "the sins of women" and makes her daughter recite lines about the evils of intercourse. Carrie insists, she didn't sin and says she was scared, because she thought she was dying. Margaret doesn't listen and begins praying and asking God to show Carrie that "if she had remained sinless, the curse of blood would never have come on her". She then drags Carrie, kicking and screaming, into a religious prayer closet and locks her to pray. Eventually, Carrie calms down and lights a candle under a crucifix statue of Jesus Christ, which has a decidedly un-Godly glow in its eyes.

Carrie walks out of the closet and thanks her mother, who is in the parlor. She's told she can go to bed and she retreats upstairs to her room. While crying and looking into the mirror, the glass suddenly shatters. Mrs. White hears the noise while using her sewing machine and she goes up to the attic to see what caused it. Carrie pretends nothing unusual happened. Back at school, she sits in an English classroom and listens as her English teacher, Mr. Fromm, berates Tommy Ross for a poem he's written. When Mr. Fromm asks the students for criticisms, Carrie says "it's beautiful." She, too, becomes the target of Mr. Fromm's ridicule, but Tommy stops him through distraction.

During gym class, Miss Collins takes a roll call and tells the girls to line up. She says they're all too busy thinking about the prom to care about whether they hurt someone. Miss Collins asks Chris who the lucky guy is who's taking her and Chris tells her that Billy Nolan will be her date. While lecturing the class, Chris and her best friend Norma show no remorse, but Sue feels bad about the episode. The punishment could have been revoking the girls' right to go to the prom, but they're given one week's detention instead. Miss Collins has decided to make them do grueling exercise routines for 50 minutes every day. Chris says she isn't going to do it and the teacher tells the girls that if they don't, they'll get three days' suspension and refusal of their prom tickets.

Carrie spends time in the library, she finds "miracles" card log. Chris is furious and lashes out at the teacher during one of the workouts. Miss Collins tells her she has ten minutes left for the day and Chris starts to tell her to stick them up her ass. She doesn't quite get the word out, but Miss Collins smacks her anyway. Miss Collins is undeterred and threatens to knock her down. Chris tries to get the other girls involved, but they'll have none of it. Sue even tells her to shut up. When Chris tells Miss Collins that "it's not over by a long shot" and storms off, Miss Collins tells her, she's out of the prom. Meanwhile, Carrie goes to the library to pick up information about telekinesis. Sue Snell, one of Carrie's classmates, feels very guilty about harassing Carrie. She asks her boyfriend Tommy Ross, a popular, good looking boy to take Carrie to the prom and give her a memorable evening, and a chance to belong. He gets puzzled, but finally agrees and asks her.

Chris and Billy enjoy a night out on the town. With Martha and the Vandellas blaring from the car radio, Billy nearly gets busted by the police for drinking as he's driving. While trying to hide his beer, he spills some on Chris' lap and she calls him a "stupid shit ". He tells her never to call him that and hits her. The two stop at a party and before getting out, Chris teases Billy. They fight again and she asks him to do her a favor, telling him she hates Carrie while she has her head in his lap.

Tommy finds Carrie in the library and asks her to the prom. She reacts by running out. Miss Collins finds her sulking on a bench and asks her what's wrong. Carrie tells her, what just happened and says she's suspicious, adding that the other students are trying to trick her. Miss Collins is thrilled for her and lifts her spirit by telling her she's a pretty girl and that she'll feel better about herself once she gets all dolled up.But the teacher is not so convinced about the motive. Miss Collins has a talk with Sue and Tommy to find out if they're sincere. She also tells Sue she can't go to the prom without a date. Tommy stops by Carrie's house to ask her again. His persistence pays off. She gives in and agrees to go to the prom with him. Billy, Chris and some of their buddies go to a pig farm to kill one of the pigs. Once there, Billy is the only one who has the nerve to do it and he enthusiastically slaughters one of the pigs with a sledgehammer.

During dinner, Carrie tells her mother she has to start getting along with people. She tells her about the invite to the prom and says "all the kids think I'm funny. I don't want to be." Carrie tries reaching out to her mother: "I want to be normal... I want to start to try and be a whole person before it's too late." Mrs. White responds by throwing a drink in her face. She forbids her daughter from going, even though Carrie says Tommy will stop by and meet her. She begs her mother to change her mind and is told to go to the closet and pray. Carrie refuses and is lectured about the boys. "After the blood come the boys like sniffing dogs. Grinning and slobbering and trying to find out where that smell comes from," her mother tells her. She threatens to move them away if Carrie doesn't tell Tommy she's not going. Margaret doesn't want to listen to Carrie, so the girl makes all the windows in the house shut. In a defiant tone, she tells her mother "I'm going, Mama. And things are gonna change around here." Carrie's power stuns Mrs. White, who calls it "Satan's power." The girl knows better and says there are other people with the same ability. When her mother tells her that Satan entered her father and took him away from them, Carrie says he simply ran off with another woman.Billy and Chris prepare their prank at the high school that night. While Chris holds a flashlight, Billy sets up a bucket with a rope attached to it above the stage where the prom ceremony is to take place. It's filled with pig's blood. Chris is impatient and Billy tells her to keep her "tits on" and he'll let her pull the rope when the time comes. Later, Carrie begins making her own dress as her mother prays nearby. There are a handful of students in on the plot. Billy's friend Freddy volunteer to collect the ballots for the king and queen contest. Norma tells Helen that Tommy is taking Carrie to the prom. Sue has no regrets about not going and tells her friend she feels she owes it to Carrie. Chris tells Norma about the plan.

That night, Carrie makes herself up for the big event while she waits for her date. Margaret is beside herself and tells her she can see her "dirty pillows" through the revealing dress she made. She pleads with her to take it off so they can burn it together. When that doesn't work, Mrs. White says that Tommy isn't coming. "He gonna laugh at you...they're all gonna laugh at you," she says. She begs and even pulls her own hair anything to keep Carrie from going to the prom. Finally, Carrie uses her power to make her mother fall back onto the bed and lay still. Tommy arrives and they head out to the school. The theme is "love among the stars" and Carrie is so nervous, she and Tommy sit in the car for a few minutes before going in. The cheap decorations are abundant, while the students dance to the music of a local band. Almost everyone is nice to Carrie, although Norma and her date Freddy snicker when they see her with Tommy. Miss Collins stops by their table and tells Carrie she looks beautiful. She recalls her own prom, which she says was magical and tells her she'll never forget this night. "I don't think I will," Carrie says. Although he initially agreed to do this as a favor, Tommy seems genuinely smitten with Carrie. He asks her to dance and they enjoy a kiss while out on the dance floor Carrie is shocked to see they're on the ballots for king and queen. She goes along with Tommy, who convinces her they should vote for themselves. Back home, Mrs. White paces back and forth around the house, certain that her daughter should not have gone. Chris and Billy hide under the stage, as Norma and Freddy collect the ballots. Most of them are replaced by forgeries to ensure the outcome. Sue, who interrupted dinner with her family to proudly watch Carrie's big night, sneaks into the school and positions herself behind the stage. The winners are announced and of course, Tommy and Carrie win in a landslide. They ascend to the stage while Chris holds the rope attached to the bucket of blood. Carrie and Tommy are thrilled and the applause is deafening. Miss Collins looks on proudly as the couple are crowned and photographed.

While up there, Sue notices something wrong. She sees the cord attached to the bucket and then spots the shadows of two people under the stage. She catches a glimpse of Chris and Billy and tries to stop them, but Miss Collins thinks that she's just starting trouble. The teacher grabs her and locks her out of the school. At that moment, the blood is dropped on Carrie. There is a hushed silence in the crowd. The bucket falls on Tommy's head and knocks him out. Norma howls with laughter at Carrie's humiliation. Carrie hears her mother's words about being laughed at and sees all the students and faculty doing just that.

Now pushed over the edge, she becomes vengeful and enraged and uses her demonic powers (which is similar to that of Kazuya Mishima's and Jin Kazama's) to lock the school doors and turn the water hoses on everyone. An electrical fire is started and almost no one in the school is spared and given no mercy, including Miss Collins. Chris and Billy, who ran out of the school as soon as they played their prank, watch the horrific scene from outside. Everyone else is killed and burned alive like a grilled giant gourami with the exception of Sue, in one of the most dazzling mass murders ever filmed.Carrie walks out of the school, leaving the building ablaze. As she is going home, Chris and Billy are driving off and they see her. They try to run her over, but Carrie turns around and makes the car roll over and blow up. When she gets to her house, she sees that her mother has lit hundreds of candles and arranged them all over the house. She takes a bath and washes the blood off, while Margaret hides behind a door. After her bath, Carrie tells her mother she was right and asks her to hold her. Margaret recalls the times she had intercourse with Carrie's father Ralph White. "Now the devil has come home," she tells her. She starts to say the Lord's Prayer while holding her daughter and produces a large carving knife/dagger. "We'll pray for the last time," she says before she stabs Carrie in the back. Carrie falls down the staircase and tries to get away. As Margaret is about to stab her again, the girl summons her powers and makes the knives and forks on a wall rack fly across the room and into Margaret's body. Mrs. White dies, looking as if she's been crucified. Carrie realizes what she's done and screams. Soon, the house starts to come apart, as the ceiling caves in on them. The home bursts into flames and both Carrie and her mother are consumed by it.

Sue is the only survivor of that fateful night. Her mother takes care of her and receives countless calls from friends and reporters. She tells one person, that the family is still "a little edgy." Because of the events they have therefore decided to o away for a while. Her daughter spends a lot of time in bed since then and has a nightmare one afternoon - she dreams that she's placing a bouquet of flowers on Carrie's grave. Suddenly, Carrie's bloody hand reaches out and grabs her. Sue wakes up screaming, as Mrs. Snell tries to reassure her that everything is okay now. Still it can be seen, she is not going to be the same ever again.

Pre-Production
Carrie was the first Stephen King novel to be published and the first to be adapted into a feature film. De Palma told Cinefantastique magazine in an interview in 1977:

"I read the book. It was suggested to me by a writer friend of mine. A writer friend of his, Stephen King, had written it. I guess this was almost two years ago [circa 1975]. I liked it a lot and proceeded to call my agent to find out who owned it. I found out that nobody had bought it yet. A lot of studios were considering it, so I called around to some of the people I knew and said it was a terrific book and I'm very interested in doing it. Then nothing happened for, I guess, six months."

Lawrence D. Cohen was hired as the writer, and produced the first draft, which had closely followed the novel's intentions. However, later versions departed from King's vision rapidly, and certain scripted scenes were omitted from the final version, mainly due to financial limitations.

The final scene, in which Sue Snell reaches toward Carrie's grave, was shot backwards to give it a dreamlike quality. It was also filmed at night, using artificial lighting to create the desired effect. This scene was inspired by the final scene in Deliverance (1972). Spacek had insisted on using her own hand in the given scene, so she was positioned under the rocks and gravel. De Palma stated 'Sissy, come on, I'll get a stunt person, what do you want, to be buried in the ground?!' However, Spacek declared 'Brian, I have to do this.' De Palma explains that they "had to bury her. Bury her! We had to put her in a box and stick her underneath the ground. Well, I had her husband bury her, because I certainly didn't want to bury her. I used to walk around and set up the shot and every once in a while, we'd hear Sissy: 'Are we ready yet?' 'Yeah, Sissy, we're gonna be ready real soon." The White house was filmed in Hermosa Beach, and to give the home a Gothic theme, director and producers went to religious shops looking for artifacts to place in the home.

Coincidentally, one of the locations where Carrie was filmed, Palisades Charter High School, was at one time owned by the parents of Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, years before the school was built. The lot was then taken, some years after the couple had purchased it, by the State by eminent domain to build "Pali High".

Initially, Melanie Griffith had auditioned for the role, taking it as an opportunity to begin a career as a mature, adult actress. After Griffith dropped out from the project, Sissy Spacek had been persuaded by husband Jack Fisk to audition for the title role. Fisk then convinced De Palma to let her audition. After several auditions, DePalma concluded that Spacek would be playing Christine Hargenson. Determined to land the leading role, Spacek backed out of a television commercial she was scheduled to film, rubbed Vaseline into her hair, didn't bother to wash her face, and arrived at the final audition clad in a sailor dress which her mother had made her in the seventh grade, with the hem cut off, and booked the part.

Amy Irving was cast alongside her mother Priscilla Pointer, who would play the mother of Irving's character

Nancy Allen was the last to audition, and her audition came just as she was on the verge of leaving Hollywood.

Filming
Principal photography and filming began on May 17, 1976 and ended in July, with a 50-day shooting schedule. Principal location shooting occurred in California: in Culver City Studios, and in Los Angeles, the Bates High School scenes were filmed at Pier Avenue Junior High in Hermosa Beach, with the exception of the shots of the Bates High School athletic field, which were filmed at Palisades Charter High School in Pacific Palisades. The shots of the school in flames, and the gym scenes, were both filmed inside Culver City Studios.

De Palma began with one director of photography, and cameraman Isidore Mankofsky, who was eventually replaced by Mario Tosi after conflict between Mankosky and De Palma ensued. Gregory M. Auer served as the special effects supervisor for Carrie, with Jack Fisk as art director. De Palma borrowed heavily from the films of Alfred Hitchcock, which as a result, gave Carrie a Hitchcockian tone. The most obvious example is the name of the high school, which is Bates High, a reference to Norman Bates from Psycho (1960). In addition, the four note violin theme from Psycho is used throughout the film whenever Carrie uses her telekinetic powers.

Much of the filming and production became problematic, most notably the prom scene, perhaps the most chaotic to film, and took over two weeks to shoot, with 35 takes. Auer added red, green and yellow food coloring to a bulk-sold concoction known in the cosmetics industry as 7-11 Blood. However, when it was put to use, the concoction kept drying and adhering to Spacek's skin because of the hot lights. The only solution was to hose Spacek down when the substance got gluey.

A wraparound segment at beginning and end of the film was scripted and filmed which featured the White's home being pummeled by stones that hailed from the sky. The opening scene was filmed as planned, though on celluloid, the tiny pebbles looked like rain water. A mechanical malfunction botched production the night when the model of the White's home was set to be destroyed, so they burned it down instead and dropped the scenes with the stones altogether. However, some interior scenes had already been filmed which were left in the movie where one can clearly see boulders crashing through the Whites' ceiling.

Box office performance
Carrie initially had a limited release on November 3, 1976, opening in 409 theaters. After receiving a broader theatrical release, it grossed $5 million, and was one of the five top grossing films for the following two weeks. Its domestic gross was $33,800,000, more than 18 times its budget, which in today's money, is equivalent to $135 million.

Awards and critical reception
The film received immensely positive reviews. Film critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times stated the film was an "absolutely spellbinding horror movie", as well as an "observant human portrait". Pauline Kael of The New Yorker stated that Carrie was "the best scary-funny movie since Jaws — a teasing, terrifying, lyrical shocker". Take One Magazine critic Susan Schenker said she was "angry at the way Carrie manipulated me to the point where my heart was thudding, and embarrassed because the film really works." A 1998 edition of The Movie Guide stated Carrie was a "landmark horror film", while Stephen Farber prophetically stated in a 1978 issue of New West Magazine, "it's a horror classic, and years from now it will still be written and argued about, and it will still be scaring the daylights out of new generations of moviegoers." Quentin Tarantino placed Carrie at number 8 in a list of his favorite films ever.

Nevertheless, the film was not without its detractors. Andrew Sarris of The Village Voice commented, "There are so few incidents that two extended sequences are rendered in slow-motion as if to pad out the running time..."

In addition to being a box office success, Carrie is notable for being one of the few horror films to be nominated for multiple Academy Awards. Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie received nominations for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress awards, respectively. The film also won the grand prize at the Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival, while Sissy Spacek was given the Best Actress award by the National Society of Film Critics. This movie ranked number 15 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Best High School Movies, and #46 on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Greatest Cinema Thrills, and was also ranked eighth for its famous ending sequence on Bravo's five-hour miniseries The 100 Scariest Movie Moments (2004). They Shoot Pictures, a filmsite that is in contact with film critics all over the world, lists Carrie as 348th on their current list of the one thousand greatest pictures ever made.

Music
The score for Carrie was composed by Pino Donaggio. In addition, two pop songs ("Born To Have It All" and "I Never Dreamed Someone Like You Could Love Someone Like Me") were written for the early portion of the prom sequence and were performed by Katie Irving, sister of star Amy Irving. Donaggio would work again with De Palma on Dressed to Kill, Home Movies, Blow Out, Body Double, and Raising Cain.

The soundtrack was originally released on vinyl in 1976 under the United Artists label; a deluxe CD edition containing a few tracks of dialogue from the film was released by MGM/Rykodisc in 1997. A 2005 CD re-release of the original soundtrack (minus dialogue) is available from Varèse Sarabande. Portions of the film's score were omitted from all versions of the soundtrack album, most notably the piece of music that plays while the girls are in detention. Additionally, the other songs in the film (Education Blues by Vance or Towers, (Love Is Like A) Heat Wave by Martha and the Vandellas, etc.) were uncredited in the film and were omitted from the album. A bootleg version of the complete score has circulated on the internet.

Sequels, remakes and related works
Carrie, along with the novel, have been reproduced and adapted several times.

Sequel
A significantly derided, much-belated sequel was The Rage: Carrie 2, released in 1999. It featured another teenager called Rachel Lang with telekinetic powers who is eventually revealed to have shared a father with Carrie White.

Remake
In 2002, a TV movie remake starring Angela Bettis in the titular role was released. The film updated the events of the story to modern-day settings and technology while simultaneously attempting to be more faithful to the book's original structure, storyline, and specific events. The one exception to the latter was that the ending of Carrie in the remake was drastically changed: instead of killing her mother and then herself, the film has Carrie killing her mother, being revived via CPR by Sue Snell and being driven to Florida to hide. This new ending marked a complete divergence from the novel and was a signal that the movie served as a pilot for a Carrie television series, which never materialized. In the new ending, the rescued Carrie vows to help others with similar gifts to her own. Although Angela Bettis' portrayal of Carrie was highly praised, the remade film was ultimately panned by most critics, who cited it as inferior to the original.

Stage productions
A 1988 Broadway musical, also titled Carrie and starring Betty Buckley, Linzi Hateley and Darlene Love, closed after only 16 previews and five performances. An English pop opera filtered through Greek tragedy, the show was so notorious that it provided the title to Ken Mandelbaum's survey of theatrical disasters, Not Since Carrie: Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops. Clips of the musical may be found on YouTube.

Early in the 21st century, playwright Erik Jackson attempted to secure the rights to stage another production of Carrie the musical, but his request was rejected. Jackson eventually earned the consent of Stephen King to mount a new, officially-sanctioned, non-musical production of Carrie, which debuted Off-Broadway in 2006 with female impersonator Sherry Vine in the lead role. Similarly, many other unofficial spoofs have been staged over the years, usually with a gym teacher named "Miss Collins" (as opposed to the novel's "Miss Desjardin" and the musical's "Miss Gardner"), most notably the "parodage" Scarrie the Musical, which hit the Illinois stage in 1998 and was revived in 2005; Dad's Garage Theatre's 2002 production of Carrie White the Musical; and the 2007 New Orleans production of Carrie's Facts of Life, which was a hybrid of Carrie and the classic American sitcom The Facts of Life.

Influence on other films
The film was quickly followed by a wave of copycats and imitators. Though Carrie is more melodramatic than traditional horror films, its biggest influence was on the slasher genre that exploded in popularity shortly after the release of the film. The final scare (in this instance, a hand bursting from the grave) was rarely seen until this point, and soon most slasher films incorporated this tactic. Films like the Friday the 13th series have been accused of ripping off Carrie's ending, because each feature finales where a hand bursts out of a strange location and grabs something. Another film of that series, Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, released in 1988, featured a telekinetic protagonist, similar to Carrie.

Other films lifted the character layout and storyline more blatantly and featured teens who were humiliated seeking revenge, often with the aid of some sort of supernatural power. Amongst the most notable are: Jennifer, in which the titular character (Lisa Pelikan) unleashes her wrath on her peers by exerting her telepathic control over snakes; Mirror Mirror, in which a girl taps into an evil force that resides in her mirror; The Initiation of Sarah, a 1978 movie of the week in which the titular character (Kay Lenz) gets revenge on a rival sorority member (Morgan Fairchild); Slaughter High, in which a young man is horribly burned as a result of his classmates' prank; Evilspeak, in which Clint Howard taps into the powers of Satan through his computer; and Jawbreaker, which featured an ugly duckling plot, a humiliating prom sequence, a pig's blood reference and three cast members from Carrie films (William Katt, P. J. Soles, Charlotte Ayanna) portraying the Purr family as well as Judy Greer, who went on to play Mrs. Desjardin in the 2013 Carrie adaptation.