In high school, once I had read Carrie, I had to see the movie. I watched it with my best friend Kristen at, of course, a sleepover, and the split-screen moments in the prom scene were my first real “cinema!” moments, when the combination of image, sound, and rhythm grabs you with visceral, recognizable power. Prior to this, what I loved about movies like Scream and Clueless was the writing; I was somewhat unconscious to the ways they moved and looked and felt. But Brian De Palma will never let the audience forget for a second that the most important way a movie speaks is through the image, and its construction in time and space.

I became obsessed with Carrie. Obsessed with the line readings, especially anything that came out of Piper Laurie’s mouth – and especially the line, “I can see your dirty pillows” (my friend Gena embroidered a pillow with the phrase for one of my late 20s birthdays). I was obsessed with the ‘70s gym shorts and high socks, and P.J. Soles’ hat and the way Miss Collins wallops Chris across the face. Obsessed with the hazy cinematography and editing, the split screen and split diopter shots, the camera whirling around and around Tommy and Carrie as they dance at the prom. The extreme closeups of Nancy Allen’s mouth with her crowded front teeth as she licks her lips, tugging on the rope attached to the bucket of blood; the long, long, long slow-motion shot as Sue discovers the rope. I was obsessed with the way Carrie, covered in blood, whipped around in a crouch, her hands locked in stiff claws, and the camera rapidly jump-cutting in on her pupil as she sends the car flipping over and over itself. I was obsessed with recognizing a visual parallel in Margaret White’s crucifixion and the creepy Jesus figurine.

My senior year of high school, I decided to go as Carrie for Halloween. I found a cheap pink satin gown at a thrift shop and wore it all day at school, carrying a bouquet, wearing a tiara. That night, at a Halloween party, I made everyone gather in the driveway for my ceremonial blood drenching. I handed my friend Joanna a sauce jar filled with corn syrup and red food coloring as I had heard the Carrie blood was made of, and instructed her to pour it over my head. All I remember is that the drenching felt neverending. Not a shocking splash but a steady stream as she slowly poured it over me. I changed into gym shorts and a t-shirt, but the red corn syrup remained on my skin. My friend Andrew, who I’d known my whole life, licked my arm and was surprised it was sweet. A week later, he died in a drunk driving accident. That night was the last time I saw him.

If this all seems extra personal, it feels important to talk about why I connected with Carrie so much as a teenager, and its influence. What King and Brian De Palma understand and convey so beautifully is that high school is hard. It’s filled with blood, and sex, and death, all while fumbling through the figuring out of yourself and others, and yourself in opposition to others, including your parents. Plus, everyone hates gym class. All of that is amplified in King’s book, written just a few years out of high school himself, and working as a teacher. It’s a story about a bullied, abused girl with supernatural powers that’s grounded in a recognizable and terrifying reality, because King knows how terrifying high school can be. De Palma, on screen, makes it erotic, operatic, funny, scary, and tragic, every emotion deeply felt and deeply real. The movie is camp, but sincere.

I’ve seen Carrie dozens of times on VHS and DVD, my copy traveling with me during the ten or so times I’ve moved around the country since college, but the first time I saw it on the big screen was last year, at the American Cinematheque, in a screening series of Argento/DePalma double features put on by Cinematic Void. Even though I knew I would love it, it had been several years since I’d watched it in earnest. I was hoping I wouldn’t see something that I’d recognize now as problematic or exploitative.

This time around, nearly 20 years removed from being a teenage girl, I found it profoundly moving. Margaret White isn’t just a crazy, homicidal religious nut, she’s a deeply traumatized woman who has turned to fanaticism as a coping mechanism to deal with her repressed sexual trauma. Chris is trapped in a psychosexual abusive relationship with Billy and lashing out at those around her. Miss Collins is an imperfect ally because she doesn’t trust anyone, and Carrie, well Carrie shows what happens when pathological shame, abuse, and psychological torture combust, but in small moments, she owns her own power, her own sexuality. “It’s me, mama,” she pleads with her mother, who declares her remarkable gift the work of Satan. Even the infamous line I giggled at in high school took on a new tenor. “Breasts, mama,” she says, “they’re called breasts, every woman has them,” gently asserting her right to her own sexuality. The locker room slo-mo shot isn’t just a brazen display of the male gaze, it’s a comment on the male gaze, a sly bait-and-switch from sensual to savage.

The tragedy of Carrie, which both King and De Palma treat with the gravity that it deserves, is the idea that in high school, the worst thing to happen to someone is shame, embarrassment and rejection. It taps into our most primal desire to be loved and accepted by the tribe, which translates into safety and nourishment. Carrie is denied that, again and again. She never receives the comfort that she’s craving, except in small doses, and conditionally, from Miss Collins, her gym teacher (played by the great Betty Buckley). In the opening shower sequence, she reaches out, vulnerable, for help. Blood is coming out of her body, she doesn’t know why, and she’s scared for her own safety. The girls turn to savagery in response to her off-putting plea, pelting her with sanitary napkins. When she pleads with her mother, “Why didn’t you tell me?” looking for some comfort, she’s hit with a book and lectured that her body is sinful. After the massacre at the prom, when Carrie returns home and seeks solace in the arms of her abusive mother, she says, “they laughed at me.” The trauma she experienced is not the blood or violence or fire she inflicted, but that they laughed at her, that they rejected her. Carrie is a heartbreaking and tragic victim who turns into a monster as her self-preservation instincts morph into total annihilation.

Watching the film now, I can see that what moved me when I was in high school, whether I knew it then or not (I didn’t), was that this was a film about the inner lives of women, who are allowed to be everything in this instance: the villains and the victims, the empowered and the disempowered, complex characters, with whom you can simultaneously empathize and condemn. Grappling with the film 20 years later, I realize that what Carrie articulated for me is that, yes, teenage girls, sometimes we are monsters–but we usually have a damn good reason to be.

David Gordon Green returned to direct the series’ third flashback episode, and once again brought the audience back in time, as the Gemstones entered the new millennium. While the episode is set in 2000, Gordon Green explained how he and [Danny] McBride try to reference film and television of the 1980s and 1990s.

As the show’s director and one of its executive producers, Gordon Green said he leans into melding genres, and called out this episode’s pop-culture references — allusions to Brian De Palma’s “Carrie,” Olivia Newton-John in “Grease” and the “Halloween” franchise, both the original John Carpenter movies and his revival of them.

“We’re not shooting it like a comedy,” said Gordon Green. “I think part of what gives it a little bit of scope, and an unlikely interest, is because it’s not just putting the camera in the comedy place and telling the joke.

“It lets something be unexpectedly exciting or unexpectedly dramatic, and not fall into the tropes of the genre,” he continued. “And then be able to be inspired by all genres and bring it into this, [rather than] make a show that could be formulaic and could be technically, traditionally executed.”

Gordon Green’s latest revision of typical tropes occurs in the episode’s final scene, when Peter attempts to rob a bank. Rather than following him into the bank, Gordon Green positioned the camera in the diner booth where Peter had sat moments before. With a protected barrier, the audience watches Peter unsuccessfully, and almost fatally, try to rob the bank to gain the funds he had poorly invested. Gordon Green explained how that final sequence involved Zahn, a stuntman and personal friend, to ensure the “Texas switch” went off without a hitch.

“We’re just trying to up the ante, and do something different,” Gordon Green said. “It was something you had to map out and choreograph and do safely, so nobody got run over. Then you hope that the lighting stays the same so you can do it all in one take.”

He added, “It was cool to end it [that way]. We always try to build it so that there’s a bit of a launch and a leap at the end of an episode, so that it has a bit of an opera to it.”

Alright - Sissy is too busy to write a foreword, that's fine - she delivers a fabulous interview for the book....but yes, the oral history of CARRIE is about to hit the printers! I reckon I expect it to be available by September. Lots of folk to thank - of course all the CARRIE alumni who are in the book (such as Sissy, Piper, Mr. King, Brian, Nancy, Amy, William and more), the wonderful Ryan Clark, Manoah Bowman, Darren Cotzabuyucas, Ben Ohmart, Chris Dumas, Michael Broom and a bunch of other folk.
The front gatefold is very cool - Darren, my fab designer, made it look like a high school year book with all the interviewees.

Although Carrie's story has been told and retold via various lenses and assumes many tints, the heart of the story remains the same: It is about a girl who experiences the horrors of isolation, where her very existence becomes a quiet act of rebellion. When pushed too far, she brings about literal carnage and bloodbath, too broken to care whether those trapped inside are cruel or kind-hearted.

Stephen King, who endorses Brian De Palma's adaptation of his novel, has stated on many occasions that he considers the film's ending more fitting than that of the novel. Those familiar with the novel would agree that while King's ending is suited solely for the purposes of novelistic storytelling, De Palma's highly-stylized, aesthetically-brilliant rendition of the ending works better from a purely cinematic point of view. Carrie's breakdown in the novel is much more deliberate and brutal, as she consciously seeks out her classmates to torment them and makes sure that they are beyond outside help. In fact, the school alone is not the target of her incandescent rage: Carrie makes sure that the whole town suffers her wrath, as she detonates the main gas lines and hunts down her tormentors. As she is on the verge of dying, Sue approaches her, and the two connect on a visceral, psychic level before Carrie breathes her last.

In contrast, De Palma utilizes his telltale split screens to unravel a saga of blood-soaked revenge that seems more guttural and trance-induced than consistently deliberate. Yes, Carrie shuts her classmates inside the burning building, but she does not seek out her bullies after her telekinetic floodgates open. Instead, she is forced to explode the car her tormentors are in to safeguard herself, and has no choice but to crucify Margaret after she stabs her daughter in the back. Heartbroken and betrayed by her own kin, Carrie screams in agony, allowing her power to consume and destroy, and she dies after her house topples under the weight of her trauma-fueled angst.

However, the crowning glory of De Palma's ending is the dream sequence that is the stuff of nightmares: the bloodied hand of a dead girl rising from the grave.

Unlike Stephen King's ending, which settles for an imperfect, yet compassionate mirroring between two complex female characters, Brian De Palma's ending lingers on rage, which comes back to haunt from beyond the grave. Sue, who alternates between bully and sympathizer, ultimately finds herself identifying with Carrie's pain. However, there is no closure for either Carrie or Sue — while Carrie is crushed under the weight of her own pain, Sue is compelled to carry the guilt of Carrie's death, which is now a source of horror to her. Even the way in which Carrie reaches out to Sue in the dream is aggressive, as her hand shoots up from her grave and grabs Sue, pulling her inside the crypt.

Although Sue is not nearly as cruel as the other bullies at school, she ends up shouldering the guilt of Carrie's tragic demise, which fuels bottomless grief and the fear of suffering a similar fate. Despite De Palma's sympathetic portrayal of Carrie, this shock ending paints her as a creature of terror in Sue's mind, who will now be forever haunted by the specter of a girl wronged. Within the ambit of genre tropes and the film's gothic overtones, this sequence works remarkably well, jolting audiences out of a latent state of complacency or the misconception that the worst is truly over.

If anything, this ending is more tragic. Despite attempts by those like Sue to understand and comfort Carrie, she breathes her last feeling cornered and betrayed by the world. Her rage, linked to her personhood and autonomy, momentarily paves the way to liberation in the form of vengeance, but is too much to sustain her. In the end, she remains condemned, even in death, only understood in surreal fragments through channeled feminine grief, and rage.

Soon we will have a version of "I Never Dreamed Someone Like You..." sung by Amy Irving, when the track is released on her debut album, Born In A Trunk. According to The Hollywood Reporter's Mesfin Fekadu, Irving's album, "featuring 10 cover songs pulled from her life and career, will be released digitally on April 7. 'Why Don’t You Do Right?' — the first single which Irving sang as Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit — will be available on digital platforms on March 3."

Here's more from the Holywood Reporter article:

Born In a Trunk also features Irving covering songs like Pino Donaggio’s “I Never Dreamed” (from Carrie) and Death Cab for Cutie’s “I’ll Follow You Into the Dark,” dedicated to her husband Ken Bowser. Jules David Bartkowski aka Goolis arranged the album and lends vocals to the covers of Jimmy Webb’s “Children’s Song” (from Voices) and Tom Jobim’s “How Insensitive,” featuring Roy Nathanson on saxophone.

“Singing makes me happy. I considered myself an actor who could carry a tune, not a singer,” Irving says. “My youngest son, music manager Gabriel Barreto, turned me on to a terrific band he represents: Goolis. He convinced me to cut an album with them. It was so thrilling to step into another world.”

She adds that she chose the 10 songs “from my life’s work, liaisons, marriages, and family.”

“We made the album, then COVID hit,” she continues. “I spent two years working with Celeste Simone, an amazing vocal coach, who taught me how to get up on the stage and sing the songs for the launch. My husband Ken Bowser helped me write intros to the songs. This is my story. It’s been quite a ride. And thanks to Gabe, and Jules and Ken, (and our 2 dogs), the ride continues.”

Willie Nelson heard Irving’s version of his song “I’m Waiting Forever,” reimagined as a galloping calypso, and asked to sing harmonies on the track for the new album. The song, which Nelson recorded for his 1996 album Spirit, was written for Irving and it references their relationship during the production of 1980’s Honeysuckle Rose.

“It is a real pleasure to be singing with my good friend Amy Irving. She has a great band behind her and I look forward to doing more with her,” Nelson tells THR in a statement.

The Born In a Trunk cover art features Irving’s mother, actress Priscilla Pointer, smudging makeup on a 2-and-a-half-year-old Irving. The performer’s father, Jules Irving, was a director and actor.

Irving recorded the album live in the studio with Goolis and eight other band members.

One of the aspects that will dazzle fans the most is the stunning implementation of Dolby Vision which does not let you down with its depth and nuance. As you might expect, the glorious flames of the finale provide a really nice visual spectacle. Other less obvious elements such as pieces of clothing and some of the environmental elements show their worth. There is also a greater accuracy to the more ruddy colors in some of the interiors of Carrie’s house. The new presentation reaches a level of accuracy and color detail that likely tops the original prints.

This disc also delivers some magnificent natural film grain which brings out so much distinct texture in the production design, the special effects and more. This grain resolves well with nothing ever appearing frozen or spiking throughout. This disc executes every environmental change with ease. Even difficult scenes like the steamy shower scene does not turn into a blocky mess. The black levels are pretty strong with no blatant crush present, and white levels never get too hot. Any lingering specks and bits of damage have been eradicated with this latest pass. The makeup effects showcase viscus elements with great clarity which makes the work all the more unsettling. There are a few moments where the encode could have potentially been better optimized, but it is miles away from poor. This is the best the film has looked on home entertainment, and Brian De Palma fans will be thrilled to own one of his top tier works on the format.

Joe Aisenberg, Author Of Studies In The Horror Film: CARRIE provides a very thorough and entertaining commentary track in which he discusses the background and development of the film, the themes of the story, the direction of Brian De Palma, the differences between the movie and the Stephen King source material, the background of some of the performers, anecdotes from the production he gained while researching the book and much more that is well worth a listen.