***Warning: Some inevitable spoilers***
I don’t exactly remember the first time I saw Brian De Palma’s Carrie. I may have been eleven. It seems that Carrie was always a part of my life. I was only three at the time of the theatrical release, but my older sister saw it and told me the (edited) plot of Carrie as a frequent bedtime story. Even as a tot I liked to be scared witless. As a result, when I finally saw Carrie, I knew the plot details by heart: the humiliation, the blood, the mayhem at the prom. But all of that didn’t matter because of the distinct difference between knowing something and seeing/hearing it unfold.
The opening shot shows an outdoor gym-class volleyball game, focusing on a non-athletic girl who panics when the ball comes to her. She is verbally abused by her classmates for her poor performance and it’s obvious this is business as usual at high school.
The next scene, behind the opening credits, is deceptively playful. It depicts that group of teenaged girls horsing around while dressing after gym class. It’s in slow motion, and the music behind it is slow and pleasant. The camera pans over to a pale, freckled, red-haired girl who is still showering. It is the non-athlete from the opening shot. The focus is on her body, and a sense of dread builds despite the sweet music. I had seen enough of Psycho to know that bad things happen to girls in showers, and this was a girl that the other girls hated for some reason.
While washing, blood flows down the girl’s leg. Oh no, her period has started! Having gotten mine at the insane age of ten, I felt her pain. What I didn’t realize is that this seventeen year old girl has NO IDEA what is happening to her. She fears she’s bleeding to death. She reaches out for help and is taunted and pelted with feminine protection products. Carrie is humiliated and I am humiliated for her. I pity her, however, when her mother is revealed to be a psychotic, religious nut-job who thinks her daughter won’t sexually mature if she doesn’t sin.
Matters are even more complex for Carrie because she is gifted with telekinesis, which seems to have intensified since the onset of her menstrual cycle. She makes things happen and sometimes it’s beyond her control. While Carrie is dealing with hormonal and domestic drama, two of her tampon-tossing classmates are concocting plans that involve her. The spoiled brat Chris plans revenge for losing her prom tickets due to the tampon incident. Repentant Sue arranges to have her boyfriend, Tommy Ross, take Carrie to their prom to make up for her involvement in that fiasco, and perhaps for years of standing by and watching her friends torment Carrie while doing nothing to stop it.
Despite knowing what happens next, to this day on repeated viewings, I still hope that something different will occur in the last thirty minutes of the film. Carrie will enjoy her night as Prom Queen. She and Tommy Ross will live happily ever after. Her mother will drop dead. That bucket of pig’s blood will never drop. She will never have that psychotic break. There will never be a fire in the gym. All those people won’t die. She’ll never come home to have that date with her mom’s butcher’s knife. But Carrie’s fate is permanently frozen in celluloid.
Regardless of the horror and the elements of the supernatural, Carrie is essentially the story of a bullied underdog; the quintessential ninety-eight pound weakling who gets sand kicked in her face every day, even at home. I wanted her to win. I wanted things to go right. I identified with her character, sympathized and empathized with her. A part of me was just grateful that those terrible things weren’t happening to me. I cringed when she was humiliated. I got butterflies when Tommy Ross kissed her at the prom. I despaired when she lost touch with reality and lashed out with her powers. My heart broke when her own mother stabbed her (eventually) to death. Carrie White was the first character that ever affected me that way.
I still enjoy the movie today for a myriad of other reasons, not the least of which is Brian DePalma’s many moments of homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. The high school that Carrie White attends is called Bates High School, using the last name of Hitchcock’s Norman Bates. The butcher’s knife figures prominently in both films. Carrie uses Hitchcock’s blood in the shower/bathtub twice. A spectacularly insane mother has left her dreadful mark on the protagonist of both films. Both main characters are socially inept outcasts. The soundtrack to Carrie is full of musical odes to and downright rip-offs of Bernard Hermann’s Psycho score. As a kid I wasn’t aware of most of all this, but it didn’t matter. It dramatically impacted my emotions without being aware of the parallels to Psycho. - Jennifer Dunivant
I don’t exactly remember the first time I saw Brian De Palma’s Carrie. I may have been eleven. It seems that Carrie was always a part of my life. I was only three at the time of the theatrical release, but my older sister saw it and told me the (edited) plot of Carrie as a frequent bedtime story. Even as a tot I liked to be scared witless. As a result, when I finally saw Carrie, I knew the plot details by heart: the humiliation, the blood, the mayhem at the prom. But all of that didn’t matter because of the distinct difference between knowing something and seeing/hearing it unfold.
The opening shot shows an outdoor gym-class volleyball game, focusing on a non-athletic girl who panics when the ball comes to her. She is verbally abused by her classmates for her poor performance and it’s obvious this is business as usual at high school.
The next scene, behind the opening credits, is deceptively playful. It depicts that group of teenaged girls horsing around while dressing after gym class. It’s in slow motion, and the music behind it is slow and pleasant. The camera pans over to a pale, freckled, red-haired girl who is still showering. It is the non-athlete from the opening shot. The focus is on her body, and a sense of dread builds despite the sweet music. I had seen enough of Psycho to know that bad things happen to girls in showers, and this was a girl that the other girls hated for some reason.
While washing, blood flows down the girl’s leg. Oh no, her period has started! Having gotten mine at the insane age of ten, I felt her pain. What I didn’t realize is that this seventeen year old girl has NO IDEA what is happening to her. She fears she’s bleeding to death. She reaches out for help and is taunted and pelted with feminine protection products. Carrie is humiliated and I am humiliated for her. I pity her, however, when her mother is revealed to be a psychotic, religious nut-job who thinks her daughter won’t sexually mature if she doesn’t sin.
Matters are even more complex for Carrie because she is gifted with telekinesis, which seems to have intensified since the onset of her menstrual cycle. She makes things happen and sometimes it’s beyond her control. While Carrie is dealing with hormonal and domestic drama, two of her tampon-tossing classmates are concocting plans that involve her. The spoiled brat Chris plans revenge for losing her prom tickets due to the tampon incident. Repentant Sue arranges to have her boyfriend, Tommy Ross, take Carrie to their prom to make up for her involvement in that fiasco, and perhaps for years of standing by and watching her friends torment Carrie while doing nothing to stop it.
Despite knowing what happens next, to this day on repeated viewings, I still hope that something different will occur in the last thirty minutes of the film. Carrie will enjoy her night as Prom Queen. She and Tommy Ross will live happily ever after. Her mother will drop dead. That bucket of pig’s blood will never drop. She will never have that psychotic break. There will never be a fire in the gym. All those people won’t die. She’ll never come home to have that date with her mom’s butcher’s knife. But Carrie’s fate is permanently frozen in celluloid.
Regardless of the horror and the elements of the supernatural, Carrie is essentially the story of a bullied underdog; the quintessential ninety-eight pound weakling who gets sand kicked in her face every day, even at home. I wanted her to win. I wanted things to go right. I identified with her character, sympathized and empathized with her. A part of me was just grateful that those terrible things weren’t happening to me. I cringed when she was humiliated. I got butterflies when Tommy Ross kissed her at the prom. I despaired when she lost touch with reality and lashed out with her powers. My heart broke when her own mother stabbed her (eventually) to death. Carrie White was the first character that ever affected me that way.
I still enjoy the movie today for a myriad of other reasons, not the least of which is Brian DePalma’s many moments of homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. The high school that Carrie White attends is called Bates High School, using the last name of Hitchcock’s Norman Bates. The butcher’s knife figures prominently in both films. Carrie uses Hitchcock’s blood in the shower/bathtub twice. A spectacularly insane mother has left her dreadful mark on the protagonist of both films. Both main characters are socially inept outcasts. The soundtrack to Carrie is full of musical odes to and downright rip-offs of Bernard Hermann’s Psycho score. As a kid I wasn’t aware of most of all this, but it didn’t matter. It dramatically impacted my emotions without being aware of the parallels to Psycho. - Jennifer Dunivant