DIRECTOR: Brian De Palma
Carrie White is a timid, socially awkward high school senior. Her classmates bully her relentlessly, and her fanatically religious mother, Margaret, represses her, teaching her that natural processes like menstruation are sinful. After being humiliated during her first period in the school showers, Carrie discovers she has telekinetic abilities. These powers intensify as her emotions grow stronger. Sue Snell, a remorseful classmate, convinces her boyfriend Tommy Ross to take Carrie to the senior prom as an act of kindness. Carrie, against her mother’s warnings, attends. At prom, Carrie experiences joy and acceptance—until bullies stage a cruel prank, dumping pig’s blood on her after she is crowned prom queen. Traumatized, Carrie unleashes her telekinesis, locking the doors and causing a fiery massacre that kills many students and teachers. She returns home, where her mother attacks her, believing Carrie is possessed. Carrie kills her mother with her powers, but dies herself as the house collapses around them. The film ends with Sue Snell dreaming of Carrie’s hand reaching from the grave—a famous jump-scare that cemented the film’s horror legacy.
One of the GREAT HORROR MOVIES with tremendous performances from Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie, the latter returning to the screen after a fifteen-year absence. Brian De Palma’s masterpiece, like Michael Curtiz’s “Mildred Pierce” and Robert Aldrich’s “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane,” works simultaneously as drama and high camp. We feel for Carrie while at the same time reveling in her mother’s treasure chest of unforgettable lines, a list so long that it is sure to satisfy the gay sensibility of any red-blooded adolescent male! Oh, the one gay character in the movie is Betty Buckley’s gym teacher, who gets the plot rolling by coming down hard on the girls (that would be Nancy Allen and Amy Irving) after the “plug-it-up” scene in the showers. The unforgettable score, one of the all-time greats, is by Pino Donaggio.
Adapted from the novel by Stephen King
QUOTES
Plug it up! Plug it up! Plug it Up! Plug it up!
The girls (including Sue, Chris, Norma and Helen (Amy Irving, Nancy Allen, P.J. Soles, and Edie McClurg) as they throw tampons and sanitary pads at Carrie White in the communal shower after a game of volleyball which Carrie is responsible for losing. Carrie, hysterical and covered in blood with her arms outstretched, runs towards the girls after she experiences, at age sixteen, her first period. Her mother (Piper Laurie), a religious fanatic, has never told her about menstruation.
That was a really shitty thing you did yeaterday, a really shitty thing!
Miss Collins (Betty Buckley) to Sue (Amy Irving).
Ballots? Ballots anyone? Ballots?
Norma (P. J. Soles) collecting the ballots for the King and Queen of the school’s prom. Norma then surreptitiously exchanges these ballotts for Chris’ (Nancy Allen) preprepared ones, all of which have a check mark on the box labelled “CARRIE WHITE AND TOMMY ROSS”.
I should have given you to God when you were born. But I was weak. I was backslidin’!
Margaret White (Piper Laurie) to Carrie White (Sissy Spacek).
He took me, with the stink of filthy roadhouse whiskey on his breath. And I liked it!
Margaret White to Carrie White.
I should’ve killed myself when he put it in me!
Margaret White to Carrie White!
After the blood come the boys!
Margaret White to Carrie White.
DIALOGUE
Margaret White (Piper Laurie): These are godless times. Mrs. Snell.
Mrs. Snell (Priscilla Pointer): I’ll drink to that……….
Margaret White: I pray you find Jesus!
Margaret White: I might have known it would be red.
Carrie White: It’s pink, Mama.
Margaret White: I can see your dirty pillows.
Carrie White: Breasts, Mama. They’re called breasts, and every woman has them.
