Carrie (1976)

Bullying is one of the most toxic, irrevocably damaging problems prevalent in society. It is a social ill that has existed probably since the beginning of time, and has shown absolutely no signs of slowing down or reaching anything in the way of a legitimate, tangible resolution. In a way, it's been almost accepted and written off as a natural -- but no less toxic -- aspect of the human condition. Like the old saying goes, hurt people hurt people, and there will always be someone who desires to take their pain and fury out on someone else in a futile attempt to alleviate their own internal suffering. Children bully their fellow classmates in school, usually middle and high, and there are even grown-ups who validate the concept that just because you're older doesn't necessarily mean you're wiser. 

Look at incidents like Columbine. Two high school seniors were presumably bullied to such an extent that they felt the only way they could vent those building feelings of anger, resentment, and sadness was by showing up to school one day with shotguns and mowing down anyone who had ever caused them to suffer, in addition to multiple other people whose only mistake was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In most cases, however, the victims of bullying don't resolve to get revenge on their tormentors, they simply take their own life. In 2003, Ryan Halligan, a thirteen-year-old boy, once so full of life and energy, with musical and acting talent, hanged himself in his bathroom after being bullied both in school and online by a horde of classmates after one classmate spread a false rumor that Ryan was gay. In 2010, Phoebe Prince, a stunning fifteen-year-old who had recently relocated from Ireland to an American school, hanged herself in her apartment stairwell after enduring over a months' worth of insufferable torment from five classmates who wanted to punish her for having sexual relations with two (unbeknownst to her) unavailable men.

If there is one person who knows what it feels like to be bullied day in and day out, taunted in the hallways of their school, snickered at behind their back, only to come home and find themselves subjected to even more severe, undeserved punishment, it's Carrie White.

It's a normal day like any other in Chamberlain, Maine. It's April or May, and the students at Bates High School are looking forward to the approaching prom that will be taking place in their gym the following Friday. But first, it's time for gym class. This is not a co-ed class, but rather one that consists exclusively of female students. They're playing a competitive game of volleyball outside, orchestrated by their authoritative teacher, Miss Collins (Betty Buckley). Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves, spiking the ball back and forth, eager to win but having fun either way. Except for the outlier in the back, sixteen-year-old Carrie White (Sissy Spacek), who appears to be somewhat intimidated by the ball, backing up further, not displaying much energy. "Hit it to Carrie, she'll blow it," one girl crudely shouts. "Don't blow it, Carrie, hit it!" demands another player. But sure enough, once the ball comes flying at her face, Carrie flinches and misses. The whistle blows. Game over. All the girls are almost comically infuriated as they storm past Carrie, who just stands there on the court looking humiliated, her hands intermingled behind her back, trying to muster a guilty smile, only to have her head smacked with a baseball cap by Norma Watson (P.J. Soles). As they all make their way to the showers, one girl stops and turns around, the most popular girl at Bates who seems to have it out for Carrie the most, Chris Hargensen (Nancy Allen), and tells the defenseless teen, "You eat shit!" 

Editor Paul Hirsch abruptly cuts to the interior of the girls' locker room, where cinematographer Mario Tosi treats the male audience to an unrestricted tour. The young women have all just gotten out of the shower and are drying themselves off and getting dressed, socializing with one another as they do so. As Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl enthusiastically point out in Knocked Up, there is an eye-opening display of nudity during these opening credits. Set to the beautiful, angelic music of Pino Donaggio, and filmed in entrancing slow motion by Hirsch, Tosi glides his camera past the gallery of partially clothed and fully naked young women as they brush their hair, laugh, and whip each other with towels. Under the dazzling direction of Brian De Palma, Tosi captures their beauty, their youth, their carefree love to be young and beautiful. While some of the actresses have their bras and panties on, others, such as Allen, demonstrate the remarkable confidence and comfortability to expose themselves from top to bottom for the camera, revealing their breasts and vaginas without any efforts made to shield them or speed by them at a faster pace. While this nudity might have been seen as more liberating had a woman been working behind the camera, De Palma is still more celebratory than exploitative, granting these women the opportunity to feel comfortable in their own bodies, and not feel ashamed to show them off freely as though the camera were not there. It's both beautiful and erotic all at once.

But there's still one girl left in the shower, and that's of course Carrie. She is standing under the showerhead, scrubbing her body with soap and allowing the water to pour peacefully over her face. De Palma films this simple act in the most singularly sensual fashion, zooming in on Spacek and observing in slow motion as she moves her hands all over her body, her chest, her stomach, her legs. She caresses her breasts, rubs the bar of soap against her cheeks, aiming her head upward while keeping her eyes closed. Even though all she's doing is showering, the way De Palma directs her almost makes it seem as though she's masturbating, exploring her body for the first time in her life, basking in the pleasure of making physical contact with her own flesh. It's apparent no one else has touched her body thus far.

With her hands between her legs, the soap dripping down like semen, something else begins to cascade from her privates. A red liquid. Carrie looks down and sees it pouring down onto the floor, seeping through her fingers. A look of concern furrows her brow, and De Palma captures this anxiety through a close-up of Spacek's eyes. The sounds of laughter echo throughout the locker room, a taunting contrast to Carrie's terror. She speedwalks to her fellow classmates and grabs onto them, tearfully pleading for their help, unintentionally getting her blood on them, but her tears and screams are met with further derision and sadism. Recognizing that she's having her first period and doesn't understand what it is, all of the girls, led by Chris, begin laughing at Carrie and pelting her with tampons, sanitary napkins, and toilet paper. Wide-eyed with fear and desperation, Carrie backs up into a wall and descends to the floor, the girls continuing to shower her under feminine hygiene products and gleefully chanting, "Plug it up." 

Coming to the poor, inexperienced teen's rescue is Miss Collins, who initially doesn't understand why Carrie is so horrified by her own period, and demands that she clean herself up and take care of herself. Carrie breaks down crying in Miss Collins' arms, sobbing like a child. Chris and Norma giggle uncontrollably to themselves, and Miss Collins orders them to leave, realizing that Carrie genuinely believes she's dying. The only member of the group who instantly feels sorry for what she's participated in is Sue Snell (Amy Irving), and in an effort to make amends, she asks her boyfriend, Tommy Ross (William Katt), a track athlete, to take Carrie to the prom instead of her, a deeply surprising and unpleasant request that the good-natured Tommy reluctantly agrees to after some deliberation (and silent treatment).

At home, Carrie's life is no better than at Bates. In fact, it's arguably worse. While I don't have much personal experience in school bullying, I would imagine that most students, after being harassed by their ignorant peers, are permitted to return home every day and be greeted with love, warmth, and respect by their own families. Such is not the reality for Carrie, who has to come home every day to a deranged fundamentalist mother named Margaret (Piper Laurie), who chastises, physically abuses, and on several occasions enslaves her own daughter in a closet to pray and reflect on her perceived sins. After receiving a phone call from Miss Collins about Carrie's bloody episode in the shower, Margaret hits her over the head with her Bible and accuses her of committing the "sin" of lustful thoughts and sexual intercourse. Clearly, Margaret had never taught Carrie about menstruation, in fear of her growing into a woman, and this is what confused her into believing the blood seeping from her represented death.

Miss Collins' idea for punishing the girls who participated in the locker room attack is three days' suspension and refusal of their prom tickets. However, because the office decides they will have one week's detention, she manages to personalize that detention via subjecting them to a vigorous workout every day after school on the athletic field. Chris, deciding that she's too good and too darn popular to partake in such a cruel treatment (even though she has no problem dishing out such a treatment to Carrie), throws a fit and gets herself kicked out of the prom. Because she's the type of person who refuses to take accountability for her actions and, in her mind, believes it's always someone else's fault, Chris conspires with her easily manipulated boyfriend, Billy Nolan (John Travolta), to enact vengeance on Carrie, finding a way to humiliate her in the worst way imaginable.

Unfortunately for Chris and everyone else at Bates High, Carrie is no ordinary teenager. Sure, she's an outcast not much different from any other: she wears outdated clothing forced upon her by her religious mother, doesn't have any friends, mopes around school with her hair draped in front of her face, sits in the back of her English class (and probably every other class), and rarely lets her voice be heard. But after a lightbulb mysteriously breaks in the locker room during her freakout, an ash tray flips over and shatters on the floor when she becomes irritated at having her name repeatedly mispronounced by the ridiculously forgetful principal, and her bedroom mirror cracks into pieces before rearranging itself, Carrie begins reading up on miracles and comes to the realization that she was born with telekinesis, a supernatural ability to move and cause changes to objects by force of the mind, a power that has just been dormant for the first fifteen years of her life.

Based on the fourth written and first published novel of the same name by acclaimed horror author, Stephen King, Carrie is a supremely effective -- and at times darkly amusing -- amalgamation of supernatural horror, coming-of-age drama, high school comedy, and profoundly tragic character study, brought to life by a brilliantly chosen cast of enthusiastic, dedicated actors and a visionary director with loads of personality. 

One of the primary ingredients that differentiates Carrie from so many other horror films is its restraint. To put it more specifically, Lawrence D. Cohen, who adapted the screenplay from King's novel, reserves the actual, supernatural horror of the story for the legendary climax, spending the preceding hour and fifteen minutes developing his tragic protagonist from a meek, timid, insecure victim into a joyful, more confident, assertive young woman ready to take control of her newfound power and her life as a whole. Unlike more traditional horror villains who commit heinous acts of violence throughout their entire movies, Carrie White stands out from the pack as one of the most well-rounded, fully dimensional, and thoroughly sympathetic anti-heroes. Even after she's pushed over the edge and uses her gift for evil, to unleash every ounce of suppressed fury that's been growing inside her like a tumor, we remain firmly on Carrie's side because we recognize that, while mass murder is never an excuse, she's still a victim of the cruelty that's been pummeling her for the majority of her life. Carrie is not a monster, but she's also not entirely a victim by the end of the film, either. At heart, she's a normal, bruised human being in need of some compassion, empathy, and friendship -- and sadly, so few people are willing to spare her those essentials.

Since 1976 when this original motion picture was unveiled for the world to witness, there have been two more adaptations of the 1974 text starring Angela Bettis and Chloe Grace Moretz, respectively. Few would argue that the actress most people associate with the eponymous role of Carrie White is Sissy Spacek, and for good reason. She is utterly tremendous. Spacek was 26 years old when she made this movie, approximately a decade older than the character she was assigned, and yet she flawlessly embodies the social awkwardness and isolation of an adolescent who's never been on a single date, never had a single person to call a "friend", and never had the latitude to evolve into her own person. For that matter, Spacek was an instance of perfect casting because Carrie is, after all, a young woman enslaved in a state of permanent childhood, forbidden from experiencing the tribulations and pleasures of womanhood. Therefore, it's fitting that a 26-year-old adult was selected to play this particular 16-year-old senior. From a purely physical perspective, Spacek has a youthful appearance that suits Carrie beautifully, her face covered in freckles, her long, flat, dirty blonde hair hanging over her cheeks and down her back, her voice edged with a childlike sweetness. Spacek's body language is exquisite, hanging her head in discomfort and holding her books close to her chest when Tommy Ross approaches her out of nowhere in the library. 

The event that triggers the most pronounced transition in Carrie's personality is Tommy inviting her to the prom. At first she's terrified and astonished. Why would the most handsome, popular guy in the senior class just wake up one morning and decide to ask Carrie White, of all people, to the prom? Like a frightened child, her first instinct is to run away from the situation, literally, and seclude herself on a bench beside her school's bathroom. It's during this moment of self-doubt that Cohen and De Palma give Carrie its most heartfelt scene. Miss Collins comes across Carrie sitting by herself with her head down and sits beside her, asking what's the matter. Carrie confides that she's been invited to prom by Tommy, and the only emotion Miss Collins can provide is pure empathetic happiness. "I know who he goes around with," states Carrie, wiser than she appears. "They're trying to trick me again, I know." When Miss Collins suggests that he might have meant it, Carrie immediately shakes her head, prompting the warmhearted teacher to wrap her arms around Carrie and take her into the bathroom. She stands her in front of a mirror and tells her to look at herself, emphasizing her attractive features and urging her to adopt a more respectful attitude toward herself. Betty Buckley paints a beautiful portrait of the type of teacher every child should be lucky enough to have at at least one point in their life. Warm, caring, soft-spoken, and a no-nonsense disciplinarian to anyone who hurts another human being for no reason, Miss Collins is an absolute angel, the first true friend in Carrie's life who essentially gives her the self-esteem she never had.

Another beautifully written and delivered moment between Carrie and Miss Collins occurs at the prom. Once Tommy graciously excuses himself from their table, Miss Collins takes his seat across from Carrie and shares a story from her own senior prom. Her date was the captain of the basketball team and was 6 feet 7 inches tall, so in order to make their kiss goodnight "less awkward", she bought a pair of 3-inch spike heels. Due to his pick-up truck breaking down, they had to walk the last half-mile to prom, resulting in blisters on her feet. When they finally arrived, there was no chance for them on the dance floor, so they just sat and talked the entire night, which Miss Collins summarizes as "magic." 

In preparation for her first social event, Carrie goes all out, trying on different lipsticks, applying a curl to her customarily flat, mousy hair, and sewing herself a pink dress, unafraid to expose her cleavage. Spacek makes her transformation from a shrinking violet to a self-assured swan so thoroughly believable it's practically imperceptible. It doesn't feel like two different characters being played by the same actress; it registers more as one individual seizing her opportunity to become the person she's always dreamt of being, had her mother and classmates not robbed it from her. While applying eye makeup in her bedroom before Tommy arrives to pick her up, Margaret implores Carrie to take off the dress and stay home with her, where they can pray together for forgiveness, but Carrie refuses, even using her telekinesis to throw her mother down onto her bed. "Just sit there, Mama, and don't say a word until I'm gone!" For the first time in her life, Carrie is standing up to her mother, refusing to be her prisoner or live by her traditional, gender-restrictive worldview any longer. Spacek exerts a quiet authority in these scenes, and when the inevitable moment comes when she's elected prom queen, walking between a crowd of cheering, clapping attendees and standing on stage facing all of her classmates and teachers, she flashes the most radiant smile. Tears of joy well in her eyes. Her joy is palpable, and that only makes the comedown even more gutting.

Carrie feels like a more realistic and grounded character than Margaret, in no small part thanks to the humanizing manner in which Spacek plays her, but Piper Laurie invests her fanatical mother with a theatrical intensity that's nothing short of spellbinding. At the 1977 Academy Awards, when the voters still felt a sense of respect for the horror genre, both Spacek and Laurie were acknowledged for their efforts in Carrie with nominations for Best Actress (Spacek) and Best Supporting Actress (Laurie). While neither walked away with a statue, I'm grateful both ladies were seen as deserving. The relationship between Carrie and Margaret sits at the forefront of the narrative, their power dynamic shifting constantly as each confused, lonely woman struggles for the upper hand. Margaret weaponizes her faith to control Carrie, instilling in her a fear of heterosexual relationships and a belief that sex will condemn her to hell. Piper Laurie recites multiple passages from the Bible with the fervor of a true, brainwashed believer. Margaret is, in fact, so deranged and enamored with Jesus that when Laurie first read the script, she interpreted the genre as comedy, bursting out laughing when she tried to read her lines with a straight face. De Palma had to pull her aside on at least one occasion to remind her they're dealing with a horror movie, but Laurie remained steadfast in her belief that no, this is a comedy. A satire on organized religion. It just has to be. Well, as incorrect as that interpretation may have been, and boy, is she lucky Brian didn't fire her right there on the spot for her mockery of Cohen's script, Laurie utilized that reading to inform her portrayal of Margaret, delivering a delightfully over-the-top performance that proudly lays waste to restraint, subtlety, or introspection. Coming from the lips of a less zealous or devoted actress, lines such as "Oh, Lord, help this sinning woman see the sin of her days and ways" and "Thou shall not suffer witch to live" would've come across as laughable. With Laurie chewing them up and spitting them out like popcorn kernels, Margaret has solidified a firm place for herself in the hall of fame of horror's most memorable mothers. And the reveal of the nature of Carrie's conception and the explanation behind Margaret's loathing of sex is distressingly revealing.

Brian De Palma does wonders with Lawrence Cohen's screenplay, which, as superbly written as it is on the page, simply wouldn't have achieved the level of personality it has without the director's input. What impresses me the most about De Palma's direction is he takes the dark, real-world themes embedded into the script -- bullying, religious fanaticism, the need for human interaction, the desire to grow comfortably into one's own skin -- and leavens them with a buoyant, frequently campy tone without ever sacrificing the seriousness of the story or the heartbreaking tragedy of his protagonist's life. For example, the scene where Tommy goes shopping for a tuxedo with his best friends, Freddy "The Beak" Holt (Doug Cox) and George Dawson (Harry Gold), is downright comedic in its editing and behavior. George and Beak argue back and forth about the latter's lack of cooperation in choosing a tuxedo. George is all hyped up and playfully irritable, telling Beak that, for ten bucks, he can rent himself a tuxedo, but the nonchalant, stubborn Beak insists he doesn't have a "tuxedo body." At one point during their argument, De Palma replays two of their previous lines in fast motion, making their voices sound like high-pitched chipmunks. His pacing is extraordinarily fast, guiding Paul Hirsch to cut through scenes with such breathtaking rapidity that nothing ever feels like filler, buying time until the climactic prom massacre. At the same time, they resist the temptation to cheat us out of sufficient time to bond with the colorful characters.

In addition to slow motion, a quirky sense of humor, and fast editing, De Palma uses a variety of music to submerge us into the mindset of Carrie White. Pino Donaggio creates pieces that are excessively dramatic, heartwarming, hopeful, fairytale-like, and suspenseful. While some of the music is a bit overused, it's always emotionally riveting to listen to, and De Palma selects each melody precisely to capture whatever mood Carrie is experiencing at any given time. 

The special effects are pretty low-key. There's nothing extraordinarily good or bad about them, save a car crash that takes place late in the film, endured by the lead instigators of the prom prank; De Palma stages the disaster with brutal realism, cutting between interior shots of the car to show the victims flipping over and screaming, and exterior shots of the car flipping over and finally exploding. There's no gore to speak of, but the swift, bruising impact of this kill delivers the comeuppance for which we've been patiently salivating. A scene where Carrie is staring at herself in her bedroom mirror becomes the first time when she experiments with her ability, and the sight of the mirror trembling looks a little phony. This is also one of two occasions when De Palma somewhat brazenly rips off Bernard Herrmann's shower theme in Psycho. The other sequence is when Carrie exposes her telekinesis to Margaret for the first time in the kitchen to assert her dominance, closing all of the windows simultaneously. For as animated and inspired as his direction is throughout, De Palma does make a few bizarre choices here and there. If he were making a parody of Alfred Hitchcock's thriller, the music choice would be more appropriate, but Carrie features no discernible connection, rendering his use strangely out of place.

I'll also never understand his decision to mask the voice of his own nephew, Cameron, with that of Betty Buckley in the scene where Carrie is walking home from school, and the little boy played by Cameron rides past on his bike chanting, "Creepy Carrie, Creepy Carrie, ha ha ha," before being knocked telekinetically to the ground. What was wrong with his own voice? He's clearly a preadolescent boy, so what on earth was Brian thinking when he decided to replace it with the voice of a 28-year-old woman? Granted, Betty does have the voice of a bratty child, but a distinctly female bratty child. So it sounds like a little girl's voice is emanating from Cameron's mouth. Did Brian secretly want a young girl to play this small role, but didn't want to hurt the feelings of his little nephew? If that's the case, and I were Cameron, I would feel more offended that my uncle allowed me to do a scene in his movie, only to cut out my own voice in post-production and make me sound like a little girl. Just my two cents.

This may technically be more of a blunder in the script than Brian's direction, but since he's the director and therefore has the final word in what's adapted from the script and what's cut out, he must accept some of the blame for the Carrie/Cassie absurdity. Everyone who has seen Carrie must automatically know what I'm referring to. After her attack in the locker room, Carrie is summoned into Principal Morton's (Stefan Gierasch) office, where he proceeds to repeatedly call her "Cassie" even after Miss Collins corrects him twice. Rather than summarize the stupidity on display in this scene, I think it would be better to quote it without any accusation of exaggeration on my part.

• Principal Morton: (over the intercom) Miss Finch, will you send in Cassie Wright?
• Miss Collins: It's Carrie White.
• (Carrie enters)
• Principal Morton: Come in, Cassie.
• Miss Collins: Carrie.
• Principal Morton: Miss Finch, would you bring in a dismissal slip? (to Carrie) I thought you might take the rest of the day and go home, take care of yourself, Cassie.

I mean, are you kidding me? How is it possible that the principal of a school, someone who's presumably intelligent and educated enough to land such a position, could be so hopelessly forgetful (or insultingly uncaring) to the point where he can't remember a simple name after it's told to him two times? Scratch that, it's given to him three times, the third time by Carrie herself, and he still manages to fuck it up a third time. As abysmal as Kimberly Pierce's 2013 remake is overall, at least her movie has the good sense to rectify this poorly aged element, allowing Morton to misname Carrie only once. 

Despite his technical prowess (which involves an expertly timed flash of lightning and crack of thunder after Carrie reveals to Margaret that she's been invited to the prom), De Palma employs one disorienting trick that might work on an emotional level but falls entirely flat on a logical one. At the prom, Tommy asks Carrie to dance with him, and Spacek and Katt perform a slow dance set to "I never dreamed someone like you could love someone like me", a rather obvious but romantically effective choice sung beautifully by Katie Irving, sister of Amy. During the dance, Katt and Spacek are placed on what I believe is a rotation device, and De Palma films them in reverse, so it appears as though the young couple is spinning wildly out of control, faster and faster, symbolizing Carrie's world becoming more and more unpredictable and chaotic. Yeah, okay, in terms of foreshadowing, that's arguably a clever device, but in terms of scene logic, it makes no sense. The spinning is obviously not meant to only be seen by the audience. By the end of this dizzying "slow" dance, Katt and Spacek are laughing their heads off like they're on a rollercoaster, which, in a way, they are. Keeping with the direction of the scene, Carrie and Tommy are supposed to be enjoying a slow dance, so when we can clearly hear the two of them laughing, and can see Katt's face contorted with amusement every time he spins around, that makes it obvious that they themselves are aware of the device on which they're standing.

The supporting characters who populate Cohen's script aren't necessarily granted an equal level of depth and complexity to Carrie or, to a lesser extent, Margaret, but neither do any of them fade into the background. The bulk of the credit for this accomplishment falls onto the shoulders of an expertly assembled supporting cast, who deliver delectable performances right down to some of the smallest roles. Second to none is without a doubt P.J. Soles, who would go on to star in John Carpenter's Halloween two years later in another noteworthy sidekick role, ultimately earning the title of a scream queen. As Norma, the best friend and co-conspirator of head mean girl Chris (who earned that title for more reasons than one, just ask Billy), Soles is a ball of energy, having the time of her life as she pelts Sissy Spacek with tampons, laughs riotously at her after she's doused in pig's blood on stage, gets her hair styled at a salon. It just occurred to me as I'm writing this line that most of what Norma does as a character is incredibly mean and inhumane, but I can't help but like her on some level primarily because of the way Soles presents her. Watch her stare at Nancy Allen in the locker room after Miss Collins slaps Carrie across the face; that maliciously vibrant smile, the way she chews her gum, the shrug of her shoulder when they're ordered out. Soles emanates an infectious enthusiasm that's simply impossible to ignore. She even makes the most out of her assignment to collect the ballots at the prom for king and queen. Listen to the tone of her voice when she says, "Ballots? Ballots? Tell Freddy, hurry up, please. Ballots?" The words themselves don't make much of an impact on their own, but as spoken aloud by Soles, they absolutely pop.

Nancy Allen is fantastic as Chris, a vindictive, unsympathetic, irredeemable bully typical for a Stephen King story. Cohen doesn't expend any effort to develop her into a complicated, three-dimensional human being with hidden vulnerabilities, an understandable motivation, or a redemptive arc. Like Michael Myers, she's just the personification of evil, albeit without the homicidal streak... that we know of. Thanks to Allen's uncompromising interpretation of the character, I can easily look past her lack of dimension, enjoying the fact that she's the classic villain we all love to hate. Allen captures Chris' manipulative personality in her scenes with John Travolta and isn't embarrassed about exposing her whinier, more feeble tendencies, like when she refuses to partake any longer in Miss Collins' detention and begs her friends to storm out with her in protest. Right after Miss Collins dispenses a long-overdue slap to the privileged bitch's face, Allen demonstrates the juvenile, powerless little girl hiding behind her tough, bitter exterior. "This isn't over, this isn't over by a long shot!" Chris screams through her tears before storming off like a spoiled child who didn't get what they wanted.

Playing opposite Allen in his feature film debut, John Travolta excels as an unmotivated doofus who has no qualms about drinking a beer while driving with his girlfriend in the passenger seat. Billy is technically a toxic boyfriend: as I mentioned, he drinks and drives, he loses his temper when Chris hurls insults at him and fires back with a smack on her face (his trigger word seems to be "dumb shit"), and is willing to slaughter an innocent pig in the name of appeasing his girlfriend. However, because of the southern, unsophisticated charisma that Travolta suffuses him with, and how easily he's reduced to putty in Chris' hands once she gives him a blowjob in his car, Billy is too dull-witted and oddly charming to outright despise. Put simply, he and Chris are two losers who deserve each other.

Sydney Lassick is humorously eccentric as Mr. Fromm, a bowtie-wearing English teacher who takes pleasure in ribbing his students mercilessly in front of their classmates. 

Sporting a blonde Afro and disarmingly winsome smile, William Katt brings an innate sweetness and likability to Tommy Ross, a jock with a heart of gold who initially invites Carrie to the prom purely out of obligation to Sue, but as he begins to spend time with her and see what a kindhearted, intelligent, and even secretly attractive woman she is, Katt conveys a genuine respect -- and understated physical attraction -- for her that's heartwarming. In one of the most powerfully delivered lines of the movie, Carrie looks at the band members rehearsing on the stage at prom and refers to them as "so beautiful," to which Tommy looks her in the eye and smoothly affirms, "Hey, you're beautiful!" Katt's delivery is so unforced and sincere, and this wonderful moment of character building is accentuated by a perfectly timed melody on the soundtrack. In the scene where Tommy shows up at Carrie's front door and urges her to reconsider her refusal of his invitation, Katt uses a whispery persistence that wins both Carrie and the viewer over, eliciting some chuckles in the bargain.

Okay, I think I've refrained enough from dissecting the infamous prom night massacre set piece for which Carrie is most iconic. Because the movie premiered in 1976, and is considered a classic by most horror fans and movie buffs in general, I feel comfortable forgoing a spoiler warning, but just in case anyone reading this hasn't seen Carrie, and isn't aware of the explosive climax, consider yourself warned.

To exact her misguided form of revenge against the person she feels has gotten her banned from the prom, Chris concocts a plan to humiliate Carrie in front of the whole school. With their friends, Freddy DeLois (Michael Talbott) and Kenny Garson (Rory Stevens) in tow, Billy and Chris go to a pig farm one night during an atmospherically appropriate rainstorm, where Billy slaughters a pig with a sledgehammer while Chris eggs him on. Later, they break into Bates High, drain the pig's blood into a bucket, tie a rope around the bail handle, and place it atop the rafter under which the king and queen will stand. During the prom, Norma, Freddy, and Kenny will replace the students' ballots with ones that only have Carrie's and Tommy's names checked off, ensuring their victory. When Carrie accepts her crown and stands before her peers, Chris will pull the rope and release the pig blood all over Carrie's body. As far as teenage callousness is concerned, this plot takes the cake.

The prom sequence, beginning around the time Carrie and Tommy are announced as the king and queen, is where De Palma really lets his technical virtuosity shine. For starters, he uses colorful lighting, mainly green and red, to foreshadow the carnage that's slowly approaching. While Carrie and Tommy are sitting at their table talking jovially, flashes of green and red illuminate their faces, particularly Carrie's. The evil festering within her is hinted at subtly by the red spotlight. 

Once Sue sneaks in through a backdoor (I guess schools would just allow anybody to walk in back in the more "innocent" days) and peeks from behind a curtain to see who wins, Mario Tosi's camera zeroes in on the thin rope, unnoticed by Sue, and elevates to the top of the stage, pushing forward to reveal the blood-filled bucket sitting patiently atop the rafter, waiting to unleash its havoc. The portentous music swells to a crescendo. The winners are announced, and Carrie and Tommy stand up to begin making their way to the stage, De Palma filming their walk in slow motion. The comically serious music gives way to a blithe melody, expressing Carrie's euphoric sensation of happiness and pride as the onlookers clap and smile at her. This honor is shared by both winners, but in essence this is Carrie's big shining moment. The students and faculty stand in a group on either side of the room. Carrie is grinning from ear to ear as she takes her spot on the stage next to Tommy and has a crown placed on her head, making her feel like nothing less than a princess. Sue is happy for her, despite having sacrificed her boyfriend on the most special night of their high school experience so that someone less fortunate could experience such an event.

De Palma then cuts to Chris and Billy beneath the stage, switching the music once again to a more tense score. Sue witnesses the rope begin to tug, and looks up at the ceiling. Something is off here. She unconsciously begins to move away from the stage, revealing herself to Miss Collins, who assumes Sue has shown up to cause trouble for Carrie. Backing up more and more, Sue's eyes eventually reach the bucket. Lowering her head directly below it, she sees Carrie, standing obliviously. Sue's mouth drops in horror. The buildup of this sequence is utterly masterful, instilling a sense of gut-churning dread long before the bucket is dropped. Spying a silhouette of someone gripping the rope behind the curtain, Sue pulls it back to find Chris and Billy, but before she can act, Miss Collins grabs her arm and drags her toward the exit, ironically enabling the impending disaster to take place. Hirsch cleverly intercuts between three pairs of characters: Sue and Miss Collins, arguing inaudibly; Carrie and Tommy, standing on the stage and staring out at their peers in a frozen state of bliss; and Chris and Billy, salivating at the shock and trauma they're moments away from causing. Tosi performs a close-up of Chris' hands, gripped tightly around the rope, and her mouth as she licks her lips in anticipation. As soon as Sue is thrown out and Miss Collins closes the door, exhaling in misjudged relief, Chris yanks the rope with all her might, and the bucket tips over, showering Carrie in pig blood (portrayed convincingly by corn syrup). The seemingly irreversible smile on Spacek's face is instantly superseded by an expression of unadulterated astonishment and devastation, her mouth agape.

While the majority of spectators stare pitifully at the humiliated pair, P.J. Soles explodes into a fit of uninhibited laughter, pointing at Carrie. De Palma bathes the gymnasium in discomforting silence, muting Soles' laughter and only allowing us to hear the squeaky rustle of the bucket as it oscillates. He forces us to share in the awkwardness and heart-stopping tension of the moment. Tommy looks up at the bucket and voicelessly asks, "What the hell?" The next sound we hear is the bucket falling down and conking him on the head. Tommy collapses in slow motion. The laughter from Norma and Kenny continues relentlessly. De Palma then makes one of his most brilliant choices as a director, replaying Piper Laurie's voice in Carrie's head repeatedly screaming the iconic phrase, "They're all gonna laugh at you!" He then immerses us in Carrie's subjectivity by diving into her fractured mind and showing fabricated images of multiple other onlookers laughing hysterically at Carrie's suffering. Bert Hallberg combines Margaret's pronouncement with three other sounds: the "plug it up" chant from the locker room, and previous statements from Miss Collins and Principal Morton respectively: "Trust me, Carrie. You can trust me," and "We're all sorry about this incident, Cassie."

As a melodramatic flourish, Carrie throws her head back, her face contorted with agony. As she slowly brings it back down, her eyes have grown wider with hatred. The entire gym has seemingly erupted in laughter. Is everybody actually laughing as a delayed reaction? Or is this just occurring in Carrie's mind? De Palma keeps the answer smartly ambiguous. As Norma, Freddy, and Kenny head for the exit, all of the doors suddenly close on their own, accompanied by a shriek on the soundtrack. The lights go out, except for one dark red spotlight, bathing the gymnasium in a hellish glow. Students begin to panic, screaming at the top of their lungs and running for their lives, all while Carrie remains rooted to the stage, watching with sadistic pleasure as others experience the suffering she's been subjected to her whole life. Under De Palma's order, her eyelids expand wider and wider. Her entire body is drenched in the red of the blood and the spotlight. De Palma judiciously avoids indulging our thirst for graphic catharsis, eschewing decapitations and dismemberments in favor of heightened emotionality. The piercing screams and bodies toppling over tables pack just as much of a punch as any slasher movie display of viscera. The closest we're afforded a money shot is a close-up of Norma being sprayed in the face with an independent fire hose (a stunt that seriously injured Soles, shattering her eardrum and depriving her of hearing in one ear for six months after shooting). Throughout the sequence, De Palma employs a split-screen technique to provide two simultaneous points of focus: the terrified, powerless promgoers on one side, trying in vain to get control over their predicament, and Carrie on the other, standing motionlessly and dispensing her unforgiving, godlike brand of justice. Capping off the massacre is a superbly realized fire that ignites across the walls and spreads rapidly throughout the gym, while Carrie, having completed her metamorphosis into an all-powerful goddess of destruction, strolls leisurely toward the exit, taking notice of the chaos and carnage she's created along the way. Everyone else left alive, regardless of whether they've personally harmed Carrie, is nothing more than collateral damage, waiting to go up in flames.

The ending of Carrie is monumental in that it singlehandedly gave birth to the jump scare nightmare that future filmmakers would use as a template to follow in their own horror films. The second to last scene in Friday the 13th, where a decomposing Jason Voorhees emerges from the lake and pulls Alice Hardy under, likely never would've been imagined without De Palma's scintillatingly executed ending. Sue Snell, while recovering in bed from the massacre she witnessed firsthand, dreams of herself in an angelic white dress, walking with a bouquet of flowers in her hands to Carrie White's home, which sits in a pile of rubble after being burned to the ground. De Palma, as his his wont, films the walk in slow motion with the accompaniment of a tranquil melody. Spray-painted across the "For sale" sign is "Carrie White burns in hell," with an arrow pointing below. Amy Irving, so tender and benevolent throughout the picture, gives her most poignant performance in this scene, tears of remorse welling in her red eyes. As she extends her arm to lay the flowers down as an eternal expression of her sorrow for ever hurting Carrie, a bloody arm, actually Sissy Spacek's, emerges from the stones and seizes Sue's arm. She immediately awakens in her bed, screaming at the top of her lungs, while her mother, played by her real-life mother, Priscilla Pointer, holds her in her arms, assuring her over and over again, "It's alright." Irving lets out a sustained, chill-inducingly believable scream, conveying the trauma a teenager in her position would most definitely be tangling with. In fact, her hysteria was so convincing and in the moment that her own mother actually feared something was very wrong with her, that she wasn't just acting. The chilling music assaults our eardrums, in addition to Irving's screaming, all the way to the end credits, when De Palma switches back to the elegant, joyous music that played over the opening credits.

In the final analysis, the message that Carrie communicates loudly and clearly is this: high school can be hell. At one point or later in our lives, we have all been bullied to some degree. In today's society, steps have definitely been taken to try to mitigate bullying and demonize it for the social disease it has always been. Schools encourage students to call out harassment and intimidation if they bare witness to it, and speak up to help someone else suffering in the shadows. Well-intentioned as that may be, the simple fact of the matter is bullying, much like a masked, silent, knife-wielding psychopath in a slasher franchise, will never die. Not really. No matter how much awareness we try to spread about its toxic, sometimes lethal, effects, it will keep coming back, spreading through different people like a virus, and infecting the next social outsider. Carrie may not offer a feasible solution to the issue, but it opens a window into the mind of a person like Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold and asks us to empathize with them, acknowledging them as human beings battling an indescribable, wrenching pain, a pain they feel the only way to free themselves from is through violence. Mindless, indiscriminate violence. 

Carrie White is an embodiment of this form of suffering, a stand-in for any teenager who's ever felt neglected, unwanted, unloved, and abused. De Palma and Cohen aren't trying to put forward an argument that Carrie is altogether justified in her retribution, nor do they demonize her as some otherworldly force of senseless evil. Rather, they present a fair-minded, heart-rending portrait of adolescent rebellion that forces us to take a good look in the mirror and ask ourselves who the real villain is: the tormented teen who comes to school with a gun and puts a permanent stop to the cruelty that's been unfairly thrust upon them, wiping out a number of innocent casualties in the process, or the insensitive, popular jocks and queen bees who spit on anyone they deem less than to make themselves feel better? It's a thorny question, devoid of black and white coloring, but one that Carrie has the audacity to ask and the intelligence to resist offering any facile, clear-cut answers to. As paradoxical as this may sound, Carrie is a fast-paced slow burn of a thriller. It doesn't come close to the hair-raising, head-spinning terror of The Exorcist, but it's certainly lighter, shorter, faster, and infinitely more entertaining, a wickedly compelling, character-driven, deliciously campy plunge into the depths of human despair.

7.4/10