Carrie (1976) or, Don't Bully the Strange Girl!

9/20/2014

Carrie (1976) or, Don't Bully the Strange Girl!

♥♥♥♥♥

Sissy Spacek's transformation from prom queen to avenging angel in Brian De Palma's Carrie

QUICK REVIEW:

Carrie is a young girl with a loony-religious mother. She gets bullied in high school in the crudest ways, and at the prom, she loses control of her telekinetic powers.
Brian De Palma (Obsession (1976)) elbows himself into the American 'big league' with Carrie and shows his visual masterfulness very clearly here. The film is packed with neat and innovative camera-work, (by cinematographer Mario Tosi (Resurrection (1980)).
Carrie is an exceptional youth horror classic, - and a film with some fine women in the leads: Sissy Spacek (The Straight Story (1999)) is a marvel as the fragile, eerily gifted Carrie, Piper Laurie (The Hustler (1961)) is memorable as her zealous mother, (they were both Oscar-nominated for their performances), and Bette Buckley (The Happening (2008)) is sympathetic as the nice gym teacher.
Pino Donaggio's (Passion (2012)) score is co-responsible for the overwhelmingly operatic quality that radiates from Carrie's 2nd half.
Before the finalizing shock (SPOILER with Carrie's hand), De Palma has fired up a tragedy of Biblical proportions, especially with SPOILER the death of the mother. The only slight disappointment with Carrie is to find that behind all the powerful uses of multifarious effects which are at work in it, no real statement or faith rests, besides the belief in these strong scenes. These, however, can't be taken away from De Palma or the film.
Carrie was Stephen King's bestselling first novel and the first to be adapted, (now his writings have resulted in more than 100 films and TV-productions.) The rights were bought for just 2,500 $, and King was thrilled with the finished movie.
The trailer wrongly announced that Carrie sees John Travolta in his first feature role, which is untrue, because he also stars in the phenomenally strange The Devil Rain (1975), in which SPOILER he melts!
De Palma is getting old, but he's still active, with two movies optioned; the Émile Zola-adaptation Therese Raquin and a film called Happy Valley. The same goes for Spacek, who will star in an untitled KZK/Sony TV-series, debuting next year.

Related review:

Brian De Palma: Carlito's Way (1993) - De Palma's best gangster movie

Piper Laurie made a comeback as Carries mother, having been out of film and TV since the mid-sixties, in Brian de Palma's Carrie

Puberty and getting your period for the first time has rarely been scarier than it is for Sissy Spacek's character in Brian De Palma's Carrie

Brian De Palma's Carrie involves a delicious sense of evil that we almost partake in, because we know what will happen to poor Carrie, whereupon most audiences will relish her revenge

Watch the original trailer here

Cost: 1.8 mil. $
Box office: 33.8 mil. $
= Huge hit

What do you think of Carrie?
Seen the sequel and/or the TV or feature remake?
If so, sum them up, please

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

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9/20/2014

Carrie (1976) or, Don't Bully the Strange Girl!

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