Carrie

Rating:
Summary: "The Raven Was Called Sin."
Review: Every high school has its misfit, and Bates High school has Carrietta White, played with heartbreaking conviction by Sissy Spacek. Her posture, frumpy clothes, and timid mannerisms make her the object of scorn from her classmates, who miss no opportunity to tease her. Carrie doesn't even know her own body, explaining why she freaks out in the gym shower where she has her first (!) period. But the minute the movie introduces us to her religious fanatic mother (done to near camp effect by Piper Laurie), it's easy to see why she's such a basket case. And as if that weren't enough, Carrie has the "gift" of telekinesis. She uses these powers to unleash hell on the night of her prom, where her main tormentor Chris Hargenson (a wonderfully catty Nancy Allen) plays a vicious prank on her. "Carrie" is not only my favorite movie by director Brian DePalma, but it's also my favorite film based on a Stephen King novel. DePalma's touch is all over this movie, and that's mainly evident through his signature camerawork. What also makes this movie such a horror classic is the way it builds suspense to a near-intolerable high. The scene where Carrie and Tommy Ross are crowned king and queen is done in agonizingly slow motion, creating a buildup of tension that literally ties a knot in your stomach. The movie also works thanks to the performances from Spacek and Laurie, both of whom earned Oscar nominations. The DVD has a very interesting documentary featuring interviews with the cast (sans John Travolta, who played the doofus Billy Nolan) as well as a photo gallery, a trailer, and another documentary on the technical aspects of the film. After over a quarter century since its release, "Carrie" remains a convincing movie that excels both as a revenge fantasy and a horror story.

Rating:
Summary: Plug it up! Plug It Up!
Review: This movie was both sad and scarey at the same time. The main character Carrie (Sissy Spacek) does a fabulous job as the tormented Telekinetic girl who is the butt of all the mean kids
pranks.Carrie's homelife is a miserable hell as well with her religious pyscho mother whose always dressed in black and forever is sticking the bible in poor Carrie's face.
She also locks the poor kid in the closet to make her pray also
Her only friend really is the kind but stern Miss Collins (Betty Buckley) who takes Carrie under her wing and shows her how to be a woman.
Later when the popular boy in school( William Katt) from "HOUSE"
fame is coerced by his guilty girlfriend (Amy Irving) to escort
Carrie to the prom she reluctantly agrees..then the real fiery hell
begins. Evil Chris Hargensen (Nancy Allen) who hates Carrie has
devised a cruel prank with her idiot boyfriend (John Travolta).

needless to say Carrie gets her revenge on her tormenters and her
nutcase of a mother with a wild conclusion.
An excellent flick by director Brian DePalma

Rating:
Summary: Carrie-Special Edition DVD
Review: Carrie is a clasasic and the best in its genre. The Special Edition DVD is awsome, it has the best special features...HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Rating:
Summary: The Greatest Movie EVER Made!
Review: I'm a giant film buff. I've seen probably thousands of films from many, many, great directors, but I have to say, this is the BEST movie I have ever seen, as well as my favorite movie of all time. I don't think there will ever be a movie will as much emotion, happiness, pain, sadness or humiliation as this masterpiece from extraordinary visionist (an VERY underrated director) Brian de Palma. Sissy Spaceck gives the greatest performance ever committed to film, showing every level of the emotion is Carrie. The supporting cast is outstanding, with my favorite co-star being the amazing Betty Buckely as Carrie's caring gym teacher, and only friend, Miss Collins. Brian de Palma does an amazing job visually with this movie. Carrie's long, slow-motion walk up the stage to be knighted prom queen, with the lovely score accompanying it, is one of my all-time favorite movie scenes.

I can't describe this movie, except to say that everyone should have it on their shelves.

Rating:
Summary: Loved The Book AND The Movie!
Review: This is one of like 3 or 4 screen adaptations of Stephen King novels I can tolerate. I consider this to be the best. Sissy Spacek IS Carrie White! Piper Laurie IS her crazy mother! They shine in this classic battle between kids and parents, cultural norms vs. religious fanaticism, and knowledge vs. ignorance. Carrie is growing up. She experiences her first period and is humiliated by her entire gym class (who "stone" her with pads), due to the fact that her psycho-preacher mom never explained the simple facts of life to her. Such things are far too "sinful" to even mention. Well, along with puberty comes a power that enables Carrie to move things with her mind. Slowly, we realize that this power is awesome and dangerous. This is not so much a spook show about telekinesis, as it is a tragedy. Most people know the story about the prom, the pig's blood, Mom's kitchen crucificion, etc. In the book, Carrie personified the awkwardness and misery suffered by the "outsider" in teen life. Sissy Spacek made the role her own. The intensity of her eyes during the final holocaust is incredible! Brian DePalma handled the direction with honesty, humor, and complete terror. An impressive film. Bonus- Check out the young John Travolta and Nancy Allen as the king and queen of slime! Amy Irving is great too! Also, see P.J. Soles (Halloween) in a funny hat! ...

Rating:
Summary: Intense, disturbing, and perfectly done...
Review: Of all the Stephen King stories adapted into movies, this is perhaps the best. Where many of King's books portray implied or internal terror which is difficult to convey on screen ("It" and "The Shining" come to mind), Carrie shows very real, and very visual terror. At odds with her hyper-religious mother and outcast from her high school classmates, Carrie's coming of age includes the onset of telekinetic powers. Carrie's struggle for acceptance ultimately erupts in a grisly display of rage, with a truly distrubing finale.

The majority of the frightening scenes of this movie come from the heavy religious over tones, and especially from Piper Laurie's performance as Carrie's mother. With her piercing eyes and deranged religious enthusiasm, Piper Laurie nearly steals the movie from the comparably subdued Spacek. As well, De Palma does an excellent job of pacing the movie to allow for character and suspense development.

With this combination of strong acting and directing, along with the excellent adaptation of Stephen King's novel, Carrie is intense, disturbing, and perfectly done.

Rating:
Summary: Be nice to the freaks!
Review: In Brian DePalma's 1976 film Carrie, we see a socially squeamish teenager named Carrie, played by Sissy Spacek, struggle to fit in at a rather typical high school. Carrie is blessed or cursed, depending on one's point of view, with telekinetic powers, automatically guaranteeing her communal aloofness. I think I understand the point that DePalma was trying to make by showing what happens to people when they alienate and ostracize the "different" kid, but why couldn't Carrie have been idolized for her special talent. Why must movies and books generally give the "freak" person the ultimate revenge against those who have wronged them? This would make sense in an alternative universe probably where Stephen King wrote lilting love poems and high school was not the microcosmical representation and preparation for society that we later must live in.
Not that I entirely disliked DePalma's somewhat formulaic approach, or rather King's warped idea of adolescent vengeance, to be precise. Carrie was indeed a satisfying movie, of which there are precious few these days and another example as to why young audiences today should learn to appreciate the films of the past. Perhaps it would be even more satisfying on a second viewing, as I really didn't know what to expect on first viewing.
The orchestral stabs of music accentuate quick camera cuts and add to the tension. These stabs reminded me of Hitchcock's Psycho shower scene and perhaps it was an homage on DePalma's part as they are used throughout the movie, notably in the last few scenes as Carrie looks around the gymnasium and wills inanimate objects to exact her revenge. DePalma probably didn't intend for the prom scenes to be humorous, but I couldn't help but find them so. I suppose that's what twenty years will do to a film or I wonder if audiences in 1976 were shocked and horrified. Not to say that I didn't enjoy these scenes, I did, for I am a huge fan of Sam Raimi's work in the Evil Dead series of movies, those which combine comedy and horror. A particularly effective shot in the prom sequence by cinematographer Mario Tosi places William Katt and Sissy Spacek on a spinning platform while the camera is spinning around them simultaneously in the opposite direction. This subconsciously sets the tone for the rest of the prom sequence as we are about to be forced into a dizzying world of pig's blood and possessed fire hoses.
Would Carrie have snapped had it not been for her overbearing, Super-Christian mother? Maybe or maybe not. Had she a supporting parent to talk to about her troubles at school, would lives had been lost? Perhaps. Maybe this was Kings' and DePalma's message with Carrie, that of man versus religion. Deeper layers of meaning lie beneath the gory surface of Carrie. In showing Carrie's physical domination over mother's spiritual zealousness, we, in essence, see a battle between man and God. It's a battle that man wins ultimately. Even though Carrie also succumbs, she is reborn, in a sense, in the movie's final shot. Certainly heavier issues appear beneath the surface of the movie when given further thought and consideration, issues such as teen peer pressure, societal structures and the almighty Pecking Order come into play in Carrie. Also of note is the portrayal of the high school as a microcosm of out society with its clear haves and have nots, weird and normal, and the sacred and profane. The last of these would at first appear to be evident, but by the end of the movie the line between the sacred and profane becomes blurred and it is up to the viewer to decide who is who.

Rating:
Summary: CARRIE--Horror and Drama in one classic film
Review: Though perhaps more of a drama than what passes for horror by today's standards, CARRIE stands out as one of the genre's finest moments, having been made in a decade that also saw other classic thrillers such as JAWS and HALLOWEEN.

Based on Stephen King's first novel, the film is in essence a character study revolving around a socially repressed high school student (Sissy Spacek) who is tormented at school by her uncaring peers and at home by a religiously fanatical mother (Piper Laurie). She soon discovers, however, that she has telekinetic powers; and when a horrible prank is pulled on her during the school's senior prom, those powers are unleashed with horrible and tragic results.

Brian De Palma's superb, Hitchcock-inspired direction mostly avoids the blood and gore until the bitter end; even the nightmarish prom scene is never explicit in its violence. But CARRIE really succeeds as both horror and drama because of Spacek's incredibly devastating performance in the title role. We sympathize with her situation, even as we shudder at the kind of horror she causes in the finale. Her performance got her nominated for a Best Actress Oscar in 1976 and it can be argued quite convincingly that she should have won.

For those who appreciate horror with a certain amount of drama, not to mention heart, CARRIE is essential, classic viewing.

Rating:
Summary: Truly horrifying and scary... makes you think.
Review: Seeing this movie on cable is nothing compared to actually seeing it uncut and rated R. Unlike the ludicrously-conceived sequel, which hit theaters in 1999, this movie does not have a strong emphasis on blood or gore, and there is an evident emotional factor as well. The viewers can actually sympathize with Carrie White as she goes through her adolescent period, endures the hardhips of being the center of ridicule and banter, and her feelings of happiness when Tommy asks her to the prom. Sissy Spacek plays her character to a T, making the emotions believable and realistic. Piper Laurie, who plays her mother, is the pinacle of the tight-fisted parent who allows for nothing degrading to enter into her child's life or mind. Brian de Palma has truly done a marvelous job in recreating the Stephen King classic, and while some factors of the movie and the book differ at different times, there is still a remaining quality of justice done to the novel. This movie will also make some people think twice before making fun of anyone again. To all who see this, I hope you enjoy it.

Rating:
Summary: CENSORSHIP LIVES!
Review: OK- I'm not going to review all 200+ comments on this release (Special Edition DVD) to see if anyone else has noticed; however I saw no mention of the fact that the reframing on this edition is NOT what the cinematographer shot. Case in point- the shower scene: Carrie is now cropped at the waist- SURPRISE! Pubic hair gone! No offensive nudity here! (I own the VHS which shows the offending area.) When I buy a film I want to see what i remember from the theatrical release, not some committee-decreed morality censorship...