Left Field Cinema

WARNING: Contains spoilers throughout

Carrie is the ultimate tale of revenge. The titular Carrie White is bullied by her peers, ignored by all but one of her teachers and tortured by her fanatical Bible-bashing mother that locks Carrie in a cupboard with only a model of the crucified Jesus for company. What nobody expects is that she possesses telekinetic powers.

Along with Stanley Kubrick’s seminal The Shining, Carrie is easily the best Stephen King adaptation. And what makes Carrie have its staying power? The fact is that underneath the supernatural overtones, this film remains one of the most realistic and relatable tragedies of modern day cinema. Carrie isn’t really a horror film at all. Brian DePalma states “horror films are Hammer films, vampires and Frankenstein... I don’t feel it’s exactly what I’m doing.” In this sense, Carrie is all but a horror film. Carrie distances itself from more conventional horror films is that there is no clear difference between good and evil. The actions of the tormenting girls are not viewed as evil, but as teenagers submitting to peer pressure. And Carrie s a product of her environment, so it is very difficult to blame her for her actions. As in real life, in Carrie good and evil is simply a difference of where standing, which makes the idea of who is good and who is evil a very blurry subject to tackle.

Sissy Spacek really shows her range of talent in this film. Physically, she is the perfect Carrie, embodying a typically forgettable highschooler. Her acting skills are amazing, she plays both vulnerable, yet by the end she is filled with rage. She starts off as a young woman who unexpectedly receives her passage into womanhood to which the girls respond by cornering her in the shower and throwing tampons at her. Initially, you can’t help but squirm at how horrible this is, but by the finale, she slaughters her entire year group at prom. In many ways, the ending is even more tragic than the opening, leaving the audience with mixed feelings. The first is the pure fear that she emits. The second is sadness. Carrie is a likeable character, and even though you know where the story is going, you were still holding hope that things would work out for her. And third is guilt. The quest for revenge is one of the deepest roots of human nature, and you feel a bit of redemption in these actions even though you know you shouldn’t be screaming “yes!” as she slaughters her peers, yet you do feel this way.

On a technical level, Carrie is incredible. The tale is that Brian DePalma had over a year where he was desperately trying to get funding for the film, giving him all of that time to storyboard the film to perfection, meaning he has employed everything from colour filters, split screens and slow motion to represent the mental, and physical torment and terror of the situation. From this planning time, they don’t come across as needless or flashy, but instead they compliment the overall tone of the film. For instance, the prom scene begins with the camera tracking around Carrie and Tommy in subtly slow motion, the dancing couple. At first, this seems romantic, Carrie’s dreams of happiness coming true. However, by the end of the scene, the screen is draped in crimson and the only sound we can hear is the clanking of the bucket on the end of the rope. The transition from perfection to total destruction is complete.

Carrie is a simple tale, but for that it already has, and will carry on to be held as one of the best “horror” films ever made. Her character will remain timelessly relatable and believable, and that, above all of the flashy technicalities from Brian De Palma, above all of the fantastic performances, is the reason why Carrie is a masterpiece.

Sam Boullier