Cult Clash: Carrie (1976)

by Pete Roberts

Ever since first seeing Brian De Palma's film adaptation of Stephen King's novel Carrie (a tale about a girl with supernatural mental powers), I've loved it with a real passion.

A group of high school girls are playing volleyball in gym class. One girl in the corner misses the ball when it's hit towards her and is immediately taunted by the others. We see that the innocent, shy freckled-faced girl, Carrie White (Sissy Spacek), is embarassed. The film's opening credits sequence is shot in dreamy slow motion, as De Palma's voyeuristic camera slides through the girls high school locker room with Pino Donaggio's equally dreamlike score playing over it. We then see almost erotic shots of Carrie washing herself in the shower. As she soaps herself, the camera scans over her pale skin. Suddenly, from below her leg, we see a dribble of red. Carrie is having her period, but she doesn't know what it is. She looks at the red liquid and becomes horrified then frantic. She screams out for help, but the other girls who notice just laugh and throw tampons at her yelling: "PLUG IT UP!". We're introduced to Carrie's strange mental powers when her rage pops a lightbulb in the locker room. Their gym teacher Ms. Collins (Betty Buckley) arrives and consoles her.

Ms. Collins brings Carrie to see the principal who excuses her from school for the day while continously getting her name wrong (I'm sorry CASSIE!) - which then brings the film into a comedy of sorts. Angered by his ignorance, Carrie makes his ashtray flip right off the desk and leaves for home. It's here that we're treated to another hilarious sequence which mixes terror with laughter, involving a young boy who irritates Carrie while riding his bike. The boy screams at her only to be taken down by her power.

Not only is Carrie tormented at school, but she has to contend with her religiously obsessed mother, Margaret White (Piper Laurie). To Mrs. White, everything in the outside world is evil. When Carrie arrives home, she asks her mother why she never told her about menstration. Her mother grabs her and locks her in a small closet where she's made a small shrine to Jesus. Carrie must pray her sins away.

The main thorn in Carrie's side is Chris Hargensen (Nancy Allen). After Chris swears at Ms. Collins during detention (for the cruel incident with Carrie in the locker room) Chris is kicked out of the prom. She plans on getting revenge on Carrie for all the trouble she's caused. Chris' boyfriend is Billy Nolan (John Travolta) - a big dumb oaf. Travolta definitely used his character Billy as a sort of continuation of his dopey Barbarino character from Welcome Back Kotter, only Billy's much more evil. We see from Chris' relationship with Billy that she's really just a bitch to everyone she knows.

Classmate Sue Snell (Amy Irving) sees that Carrie is in need of some help, so she asks her own boyfriend Tommy Ross (William Katt) to ask Carrie to the prom as a favor. Tommy is the All-American, blonde-haired, blue-eyed sports hero; a real good guy. He tells Sue he'll do it for her and asks Carrie several times before she finally accepts his invitation. When Chris finds out that Carrie is attending the prom with Tommy Ross, she gets an idea to have Billy and his pal kill a pig and drain the blood from it, use fake ballots to nominate Carrie and Tommy for Prom King and Queen, and then drop the bucket of the blood all over her.

De Palma creates so many memorable visual pieces with his use of deep focus (see Tommy Ross' poem reading). One great sequence in particular is the shot of Carrie and Tommy dancing during the big prom. De Palma circles around the two as they dance in circles themselves. The camera gradually picks up speed and we get a sense of things spinning out of control. De Palma not only records the acting, he tells the story through the language of cinema.

The slow-motion sequence of Sue Snell discovering the bucket of blood placed in the rafters above Carrie and Tommy Ross during the ceremony is another incredible piece of visceral cinema. De Palma shoots Sue discovering the rope leading up to the bucket, meanwhile we see Chris' wide eyes and shiny lips showing both ignorance and pure evil.

Carrie also showcases one of De Palma's most exciting split-screen sequences. When Carrie is drenched in pig blood, she hears her mother's words of warning in her head (They're all going to laugh at you!) and everyone at the prom spins in a laughing kaleidoscope. We see Carrie covered in blood, and as the bucket swings, we hear the tension of the rope getting tighter and tighter. The rope finally breaks and hits Tommy on the head knocking him to the ground. Carrie switches the prom lights to blood red and her inner rage finally explodes as the prom becomes an all out massacre of fire and water. Carrie exits the prom, still in her death daze as the gym becomes an inferno behind her. As Carrie walks home, a group of fire trucks rush by her. Chris and Billy drive up behind Carrie intending to run her over, but she senses the danger and turning quickly, she uses her deadly powers to flip the car over. Carrie finally reaches her home and goes upstairs to undress and wash off the blood, unaware that Mrs. White is standing like a mannequin behind her bathroom door. The entire segment creates a haunting mood.

When Carrie finishes her bath, she calls downstairs for her mother, but like a black widow spider, Mrs White moves from behind the door. Her mother calms her down, but as Carrie is nestled in her arms, Mrs. White raises a large butcher knife and stabs her. Carrie tumbles down the stairs and is in shock as her mother insanely smiles while blessing Carrie with the bloody knife in her hand. Carrie crawls into the kitchen and tries to hide, but her mother follows to slash her Norman Bates style. Carrie unleashes her powers once again and impales her mother with kitchenware (including a frosting knife and a potato peeler). Her mother finally loses her breath and dies. The camera pans back and we see Margaret White crucified. Suddenly, the house begins to shake and Carrie pulls her mother off the wall and hides in the closet. The house collapses as if to tell us that Carrie's soul has died along with her mother, and then they're both gone forever. The final sequence is one of cinema's legendary shock endings.

Brian De Palma's continously creative and daring visual ideas mixed with the overt religious imagery/themes and his nods to Psycho (the score, Bates High School) and his trademark black humor gets me everytime I watch it. This is one of the greatest works of pure cinema and horror.