Carrie ***** (1976, Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, Nancy Allen, John Travolta) – Classic Movie Review 302

Brian De Palma’s brilliant original 1976 horror thriller film Carrie includes an excellent role as Carrie’s puritanical mother for the perennially undervalued Piper Laurie, who was Oscar nominated as Best Supporting Actress

‘If you’ve got a taste for terror take Carrie to the prom.’

Forget the lame 2013 remake, director Brian De Palma’s brilliant original 1976 horror thriller film Carrie is the one to see. It makes history as the first film of a Stephen King novel, his first to be published. He was 26 and paid only $2,500 for the film rights.

Sissy Spacek, at the age of 27, is outstanding as the repressed, unstable American teenager Carrie White. Carrie is young for her age, abused at school and psychotically timid. The 17-year-old girl eventually takes violent revenges for the bloody, humiliating prank played on her at the high-school prom after she has the good fortune to discover that she possesses lethal telekinetic powers. Handy, that, huh?

Based on Stephen King’s novel, this 1976 horror movie classic is an extremely powerful, dark-toned and impactful chiller. It’s slickly and confidently made by Brian De Palma on a more intimate scale than he often prefers. It all builds up to a dazzlingly staged, special effects-led climax and it delivers one of horror cinema’s all-time biggest shocks at the end.

De Palma pays plenty of attention to atmosphere, characterisations and performances, ensuring all are special. The movie includes an excellent role for the perennially undervalued Piper Laurie as Carrie’s puritanical mother, Margaret. Spacek was Oscar nominated as Best Actress and Laurie as Best Supporting Actress, but neither won.

Spacek went on to win an Oscar in 1981 for Coal Miner’s Daughter. Laurie, Oscar nominated as Best Actress for The Hustler and Best Supporting Actress for Carrie and Children of a Lesser God, hasn’t won an Oscar.

The very strong cast also includes a 22-year-old, pre-stardom John Travolta, as Billy Nolan, and Nancy Allen, who sets the standard for bitch-goddess teenagers as Chris Hargensen, as well as Amy Irving, William Katt, Betty Buckley, P J Soles and Priscilla Pointer.

Allen married De Palma in 1979 and divorced in 1984. She also appeared in De Palma’s Home Movies (1980), Dressed to Kill (1980) and Blow Out (1981).

Spacek’s husband Jack Fisk convinced De Palma to let her audition. She cancelled a TV commercial, put Vaseline in her hair, did not wash her face, and arrived for her screen test in a sailor dress her mother made her in the seventh grade, with the hem cut off, and won the part. Fisk is the film’s art director.

Isidore Mankofsky was replaced as director of photography by Mario Tosi after a conflict. Gregory M Auer, assisted by Ken Pepiot, is the special effects supervisor. The score is by Pino Donaggio.

The White house was filmed in Santa Paula, California, with religious artifacts bought from local souvenir shops.

The film was released on 3 November 1976 in just 17 cinemas in Washington D C/ Baltimore. It was released in 9 cinemas in Chicago two days later, and opened in 53 cinemas in New York City on 16 November, and then in Los Angeles on 17 November. It was a big hit. On a budget of $1.8 million, the box office was $33.8 million (US and Canada).

The Rage: Carrie 2 was a very belated sequel in 1999, with Jason London and Emily Bergl. Carrie was remade in 2013 as Carrie, with Chloë Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore and Ansel Elgort.

The cast are Sissy Spacek as Carrie, Amy Irving as Sue Snell, William Katt as Tommy Ross, Nancy Allen as Chris Hargensen, John Travolta as Billy Nolan, Betty Buckley as Miss Collins, P J Soles as Norma, Sydney Lassick as Mr Fromm, Stefan Gierasch as Mr Morton, Priscilla Pointer as Mrs Snell, Piper Laurie as Margaret White, and Edie McClurg as Helen Shyres.

Piper Laurie (born Rosetta Jacobs; January 22, 1932) died in Los Angeles on October 14, 2023, aged 91, after a long illness.

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