Carrie (1976) first time watch thoughts

I’ve put off watching (and by extension reading) the Stephen King classic Carrie for far too long. Whilst I’ve always wanted to, for one reason or another I kept putting it off. However, with the long weekend to myself I figured I’d finally work my way through the adaptations, sequels and book, starting with the first film. Undeniably a classic for very good reasons, it is a film that, whilst I do really like it, I think it is definitely flawed in a few big ways and will be interesting to see how I compare the 2013 version

Let’s get the bad out of the way first:

This movie is dated. Badly. I’m fully aware that being from 1976 with a super low budget that was all but inevitable but it is at times almost cringe inducingly dated. Let’s just say fashion evolved real fucking fast.

I’d be lying if I said I was a huge Brian de Palma fan in general but this is definitely a film that kinda highlighted why I’m not too keen on him. This thing is edited with a lot of weird decisions. That in of itself isn’t too bad and at times actually really works (especially during the prom massacre) but a lot of things at times feel either overlong or just stylish for the sake of being stylish.

Then there’s the music. If there is one thing I really did not like, it was the music. Individual moments again do really work, in particular the opening just really hammers home the cruelty of it all, but it’s just at times weirdly scored (what the fuck was that during the detention scene?)

Right now that’s out of the way, onto the good.

The performances in this movie are truly incredible. Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie are both so goddamn good, you genuinely feel so bad for Carrie at so many points. One thing I think I like better than how Carrie is in the book is not hearing much of her internal thoughts. Whilst you absolutely understand why she thinks the way she does in the book, having her more repressed and quiet really ramps up the sympathy. You just feel so bad for her and Spacek is so good at selling it. Even if her appearance differs massively from the book, you get enough of a sense looking at her compared to the other girls that she is an outsider but, like her book counterpart, there is something beautiful underneath.

Piper Laurie meanwhile is bat crap crazy in the best way. 10/10 no notes.

No seriously, no notes. It’s amazing.

Additionally I think the movie is actually written really well. There’s still moments that do stand out but by and large it’s a solid script that manages to capture the best of Kings book whilst ditching or refining what doesn’t work, even if it was just for budgetary reasons.

Overall it’s not perfect but it’s also not hard to tell why Stephen King became such a well known name so fast from this, it’s a classic for a reason.

Overall, 7/10