Carrie (1976 film)

Carrie
Original theatrical poster
Directed by	Brian De Palma
Produced by	Brian De Palma Paul Monash
Written by	Lawrence D. Cohen based on a novel by Stephen King
Starring	Sissy Spacek Piper Laurie Betty Buckley Amy Irving William Katt Nancy Allen John Travolta
Music by	Pino Donaggio
Cinematography	Mario Tosi
Editing by	Paul Hirsch
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	November 3, 1976 (1976-11-03)
Running time	98 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1,800,000
Gross revenue	$33,800,000
Followed by	The Rage: Carrie 2

Carrie is a 1976 supernatural horror film ^[1] film directed by Brian De Palma and written by Lawrence D. Cohen, based on the novel Carrie by Stephen King. The film and the novel tell the story of a socially outcast teenage girl, Carrie White, who discovers she possesses psionic power which seems to flare up when she becomes angry. Carrie's powers become apparent after her humiliation by her peers, teachers, and abusive mother, eventually resulting in tragedy. The film stars Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Betty Buckley, Amy Irving, Nancy Allen, William Katt, John Travolta, P.J. Soles and Priscilla Pointer.

The film was a major success for United Artists, grossing over $30 million at the U.S. box office, on a budget of $1.8 million. It received a mostly positive response from critics.^[2][3] The film spawned a failed sequel The Rage: Carrie 2 and a fairly well-received 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.^[4]

Both Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie were nominated for Academy Award for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively.

Plot

Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) is a shy teenage girl abused by her religious mother, Margaret (Piper Laurie). The girls at school also harass Carrie, with Chris Hargensen (Nancy Allen) being especially cruel.

Carrie experiences her first period while showering after gym class, and the other girls throw tampons and sanitary pads at her before Miss Collins (Betty Buckley) intervenes. As Carrie becomes more upset, a light bulb pops just before Miss Collins tells the other girls to leave. Miss Collins brings Carrie to the principal's office, and while consoling her, the principal calls Carrie by the wrong name, inadvertently emphasizing how overlooked she is. When Carrie corrects the principal and says "it's Carrie," an ashtray falls from the principal's desk. Later, while Carrie is walking home, a neighborhood boy crashes his bicycle after taunting Carrie.

Margaret, who walks from door to door "spreading the gospel of salvation through Christ's blood", receives a call from Miss Collins about the locker room incident and tells Carrie that the "curse of blood" is punishment for sin. She locks Carrie in a closet and forces her to pray. In her bedroom that night, a miserable Carrie stares at her mirror until it shatters.

Sue Snell (Amy Irving), one of Carrie's gym classmates, expresses regret for teasing Carrie at school. The next day, English teacher Mr. Fromm (Sydney Lassick) reads a poem written by Tommy Ross (William Katt), Sue's boyfriend. Fromm invites the class to critique Tommy's work but mocks Carrie when she speaks, which irks Tommy. Sue, feeling guilty for teasing Carrie, convinces Tommy to take Carrie to the prom and show her a good time.

Carrie suspects she may have a telekinetic gift, and researches it in the library. Later, Tommy asks Carrie to prom but Carrie flees, fearing another trick. After a pep talk from Miss Collins, Carrie accepts Tommy's invitation when he later approaches her at her home. Carrie tells her mother that she is going to the prom, and Margaret insists the prom is an occasion of sin, refusing to let her attend. However, Carrie causes the windows of the house to slam shut, revealing that she has telekinesis. Margaret believes this is Satan's power, but Carrie again insists she will go to the prom.

Meanwhile, Miss Collins berates the girls who tormented Carrie in the locker room, subjecting them to a week-long boot-camp-style detention. All the girls show remorse except for Chris, who holds a deep hatred for Carrie. After Chris throws a fit, Miss Collins bans her from the prom. Chris tells her delinquent boyfriend Billy (John Travolta) that she wants revenge on Carrie and goes with Billy and other kids to a farm where Billy kills a pig. After draining the pig's blood into a bucket, Billy places the bucket above the school's stage.

Chris makes a deal with her friend Norma Watson (P.J. Soles) and Billy's friend Freddy to rig the election of prom king and queen so Tommy and Carrie win. As Carrie gets ready for the evening, her mother tells her that everyone will laugh at her. Carrie defies her mother, leaving with Tommy. Though her classmates are surprised to see Carrie at prom, they begin treating her as an equal. Sue Snell sneaks into the prom to ensure everything is going well for Carrie.

To her surprise, Carrie and Tommy are named prom king and queen. As the couple approaches the stage to be crowned, Sue discovers Chris hiding behind the stage holding a rope attached to the bucket of pig's blood resting on the rafters. However, Miss Collins forces her out, believing she is there for mischief. As the crown is placed on Carrie's head, Chris pulls the rope and Carrie is drenched in pig's blood. As the crowd looks on in silence, Carrie imagines the whole room laughing and jeering at her. Carrie's telekinesis takes over, closing the doors to the gym and turning on a fire hose. Norma is killed by the fire hose along with many other people, and Carrie kills Miss Collins with a falling rafter. Mr. Fromm is electrocuted causing a fire in the gym. Leaving her classmates inside the school as it burns, Carrie walks home, covered in blood. Chris and Billy catch up with her in Billy's car, intending to run her over, and Carrie uses her powers to flip the car and explode, killing Billy and Chris.

At home, Carrie breaks down in her mother's arms after taking a bath. Believing the devil has taken over Carrie, Margaret brings the girl to her knees and stabs Carrie in the back. Carrie falls down the stairs and is cornered in the kitchen by her mother. Carrie sends kitchen knives flying at Margaret, pinning her to the wall and killing her. Overcome with guilt and grief, Carrie uses her telekinesis to collapse the house where both she and her mother are crushed by falling debris.

Some time later, Sue, the only survivor of prom, dreams of visiting the plot where Carrie's house stood. As she places flowers on the ground, a bloody hand reaches out, grabbing Sue's wrist, who then wakes up, screaming in her mother's arms.

Cast

• Sissy Spacek as Carrie White
• Piper Laurie as Mrs. White
• Amy Irving as Sue Snell
• William Katt as Tommy Ross
• Betty Buckley as Miss Collins
• Nancy Allen as Chris Hargensen
• John Travolta as Billy Nolan
• PJ Soles as Norma Watson
• Priscilla Pointer as Mrs. Snell
• Sydney Lassick as Mr. Fromm
• Stefan Gierasch as Mr. Morton
• Michael Talbott as Freddy
• Doug Cox as The Beak
• Harry Gold as George Dawson
• Noelle North as Freida Jason
• Cindy Daly as Cora
• Deirdre Berthrong as Rhonda
• Anson Downes as Ernest
• Rory Stevens as Kenny
• Edie McClurg as Helen

Production

Pre-production

Carrie was the first Stephen King novel to be published and the first to be adapted into a feature film. In an interview in Port Charlotte, Florida at a public appearance near his home on the Gulf coast on March 20, 2010, King said he was 26 years old at the time and was paid just $2,500 for the film rights, but adding "I was fortunate to have that happen to my first book."^[5] De Palma told Cinefantastique magazine in an interview in 1977:

Lawrence D. Cohen was hired as the writer, and produced the first draft, which had closely followed the novel's intentions.^[7] 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).^[7] Spacek had insisted on using her own hand in the given scene, so she was positioned under the rocks and gravel. DePalma 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.' DePalma 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 going to be ready real soon." The White house was filmed in Santa Paula, California 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^[8]. Determined to land the leading role, Spacek backed out of a television commercial she was scheduled to film,^[8] 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,^[6] 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.^[7] She and De Palma later married.

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 Mankofsky and De Palma ensued.^[9] Gregory M. Auer served as the special effects supervisor for Carrie, with Jack Fisk, Spacek's husband, 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 colouring 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 Whites' 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.^[7] A mechanical malfunction botched production the night when the model of the Whites' home was set to be destroyed, so they burned it down instead and dropped the scenes with the stones altogether.^[7] 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.

Reaction

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

Carrie received immensely positive reviews and is widely regarded as one of the best films of 1976, as well as one of the best horror films ever made.^[10][11][12] The film currently holds a 90% "Certified Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes.^[13] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times stated the film was an "absolutely spellbinding horror movie", as well as an "observant human portrait".^[14] 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."^[15] 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."^[16] Quentin Tarantino placed Carrie at number 8 in a list of his favorite films ever.^[17]

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..."^[16]

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. In 2008, Carrie was ranked number 86 on Empire Magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time.^[18] This movie also 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).^[19] 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.^[20]

Stephen King's reaction today

In a March 20, 2010 interview, King replied that he thought, although dated now, Carrie was a "good movie."^[5]

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

The Rage: Carrie 2 was released in 1999. It featured another teenager with telekinetic powers who is revealed to have shared a father with Carrie White.

Remake

In 2002, a television 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 cited by most critics as inferior to the original.^[21]

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^[22] 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^[23]. 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^[24], which hit the Illinois stage in 1998 and was revived in 2005; Dad's Garage Theatre's 2002 production of Carrie White the Musical^[25]; and the 2007 New Orleans production of Carrie's Facts of Life^[26], 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.

Pop culture references

Horror metal band Razorthroat recorded a 2004 concept album entitled "Pig Blood Blues" based on Carrie.^[27]

References

External links

• Carrie at the Internet Movie Database
• Carrie at Allmovie
• Carrie at Box Office Mojo