Quick recap: Carrie and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Prom
mosquitos got me like…
Fun (?) fact: Piper Lauria, who played Carrie’s mother, had to be reminded several times that she was making a horror film and not a black comedy.
something something about the fine line between tragedy and comedy
My thoughts: I think I’m at that point in my life where I just don’t get freaked out like I used to. This is my 3rd movie during HorrorFest and I have yet to feel even a twinge of fear. Not that I was expecting much with Carrie, mind you, but at least one jumpy scene would’ve been nice.
Is it Carrie I’m supposed to be scared of? She seems the likeliest candidate, what with all the murdering and blood, but I failed to muster any feeling toward her other than sadness. Sure, busty teen girls were killed, but many of them deserved some sort of revenge. I did feel bad about some of the characters being in the way of Carrie’s wrath but telekinetic powers are hard to control when one is angry. Collateral damage, if you will. If I had to pick an aspect of the movie that bothered me, it would have to be the mother. The teenage girls were evil and directly contributed to Carrie’s meltdown, but it was the mother who put everything into motion with her severe religious beliefs. Had she calmed down for once in her life and thought of her daughter’s needs, maybe none of this would’ve happened. The kind of horror that gets me most is realistic kind. The mother was nuts, but not out of the realm of possibility.
As much of a pessimist I have become about the horror films on this list, I did really enjoy Carrie. I loved the Psycho references and the tons of blood. I’m not usually into gore, but director Brian De Palma turned it into an art form. The scenes of her on stage, drenched in pigs’ blood are some of the most iconic in horror movie history and I think they are oddly gorgeous, in a repulsive way.
Final review: 4/5. Carrie would be the perfect movie to show a bunch of middle school girls just about to enter high school so that maybe they will think twice before bullying anyone.
Up next: HorrorFest!
1001 Movie Nights 
I agree with your Carrie review. I couldn’t be mad at Carrie; I pretty much cheered her on! Her mother was a weirdo and those kids deserved it.
Exactly! If anything, it’s a triumphant ending, not horror. She took it a little too far with the death and destruction but those powers are difficult to turn on and off.
Carrie is why I can’t get with horror movies. Most of them aren’t scary, and just come across as mean. I will say this: lots of high school kids in quintessentially sunny, happy places walk around in their own private nightmares. They always have, and they always will. I think that’s where the horror in Carrie is supposed to lie. That, and Piper Laurie, who is just…. there are no words.
Very good point and I agree with you about where the horror is. It’s a good story but not scary by any stretch of the imagination.