Two Adaptations of Stephen King's Carrie

CARRIE (2002 NBC made-for-TV version)

Based on Stephen King’s debut 1974 novel but set in modern times, the NBC adaptation of Carrie premiered in November of 2002 and is available on DVD.  The project is feature-film quality and is rather edgy for made-for-TV fare.  The plot follows the life of Carrie White, a high school student who lives with her abusive Christian mother (a zealot who frequently forces Carrie to pray in a closet).  Carrie (a social outcast) realizes that she has telekinetic powers that enable her to control matter with her mind, particularly in times of extreme stress.  Some of Carrie’s cruel peers concoct a plan to douse Carrie with a bucket of pig blood at the prom.  After they execute their plan, Carrie lashes out with her powers, psychically holding all the school exits closed.  Carrie kills off the majority of her classmates (mostly by setting off the sprinkler system and then bringing some electrical cables crashing down, thereby electrocuting them) in a gripping fire-filled sequence.  Carrie’s rampage continues in town before she ultimately heads home and climbs into the tub, where she later (when her mother finds her) cannot recall what happened.  Her mother (convinced now that Carrie is a witch) attempts to drown Carrie, who uses her telekinesis to induce a heart attack that kills the older woman.  Sue Snell (one of the popular girls from Carrie’s school) finds Carrie and saves her life with CPR.  For reasons I don’t understand, Sue and Carrie essentially fake Carrie’s death and then head for Florida in a strange alliance.  The main story is intercut with scenes of police questioning some of the surviving students about the scheme to humiliate Carrie as they struggle to piece together what happened.

There are a couple of lengthy dialogue scenes in this tale that stretch on a bit too long (like when Sue helps Carrie pick out lipstick in a store), but this is a minor complaint.  The 2002 version of Carrie is dark, disturbing, and generally excellent.  The ending (a serious deviation from the source novel) with Sue and Carrie en route to Florida puzzles me, but the journey to the finale is worth taking.  The project features three of my favorite actresses: Katharine Isabelle (who somehow looks younger here than she did in Ginger Snaps) and Emilie de Ravin (who later played Claire on Lost) plus an award-worthy performance by Angela Bettis as the titular tortured teen.  Quality adaptations of Stephen King stories are rare – this one is absolutely worth seeking out.   

CARRIE (1976 version)

Screenwriter Lawrence D. Cohen and director Brian De Palma follow the basic spine of Stephen King’s novel: a tormented young woman named Carrie develops telekinetic powers and uses them to exact revenge against her high school classmates after pranksters douse her with pig  blood at the senior prom.  After her rampage, Carrie returns home and bathes.  Her overly-religious mother (who perceives Carrie as a personification of sin) stabs Carrie in the back.  Carrie, in her final moments of life, uses her powers to send various sharp kitchen implements into her mother.  Carrie causes the house to burn and collapse all around her.

The first ever adaptation of a Stephen King novel, Carrie holds up well decades after its release and has just enough humor woven through its beginning and middle to balance out the horror of its ending.  From the moment the bucket of blood dumps over the protagonist until the time the credits roll, Carrie is a wild ride.  De Palma uses his trademark split screen to interesting effect here, sometimes showing Carrie on one side and what she’s doing with her telekinesis on the other. 

Perhaps the most disturbing epiphany I had after watching both the 1976 and 2002 versions of Carrie is the realization that tales about school bullies and revenge of the disempowered seem timeless.