Carrie

UK Release Date. 13 January 1977
Certification. X
Running Time. 1 hour 38 mins
Director. Brian De Palma
Cast. Nancy Allen, Betty Buckley, Amy Irving, William Katt, Piper Laurie, Sissy Spacek, John Travolta.
Rating. 48%

Review.

Viewed in a modern context, Carrie is a more troubling film than it might have seemed to audiences in the 1970s. The entirely superfluous opening horizontal pan featuring a multitude of naked teenage girls in the High School locker room and shower room in soapy, soft-porn slow-motion feels more at home in a bawdy fraternity film such as Porky's or Animal House. Combined with a casual, almost nonchalant, approach to physical violence towards women, Carrie is not a film that has aged well.

Carrie is based on a Stephen King novel in which Carrie White (Sissy Spacek), a socially awkward teenager, is incessantly bullied by her classmates and routinely abused by her fanatically religious mother, Margaret White (Piper Laurie). Sissy Spacek delivers a compelling performance in the title role; Spacek was 26 when the film was shot, but looks barely half that age. She is plain, meek and introverted, and her other-worldly combination of maturity and innocence adds to the film's unsettling tone. 

Before Spacek, other actresses apparently considered for the role were Linda Blair, Jodie Foster and Melanie Griffith. Indeed, director Brian Di Palma originally cast Amy Irving as Carrie. It was Spacek's husband, Jack Fisk, who was working as a production designer on the film, who suggested that his wife auditioned for the role. According to an article on Screen Rant, "Spacek wore a sailor dress made for her as a child and smeared Vaseline in her hair prior to the audition." After Spacek auditioned, Di Palma was forced to juggle the cast. Amy Irving was re-cast as Sue Snell and Nancy Allen, originally cast as Sue Snell, was offered the role of Chris Hargensen.

In the opening of the film, Carrie is betrayed by her body, which seems to trigger telekinesis powers. These powers seem to accompany Carrie's transformation into a woman, and she finds that she's able to fight back, both against the bullies and her abusive mother. Her final act of revenge is uncompromising, indiscriminate and savage, yet Carrie still warrants our sympathy. 

The themes of Carrie remain contemporary - bullying, isolation, loneliness. Carrie is a story about what loneliness can do to a person. While Carrie remains memorable for the film's, now iconic, shocking set pieces, the feeling that lingers at the conclusion of the film is one of utter sadness. The horror here lies in what people are capable of doing to one another, and how no matter how much power someone has, even they are not immune to the callousness of other people.