The Great Movies: Carrie
There will never be an ultimate scary movie since fear is a subjective idea. Fears come from experiences that have caused great tension and anxiety. The films that scare us can only grab the ones that can relate to the emotions on screen. Perhaps what I see as being a great horror story is horror of the monster of the film, but the forces around it that creates the monster. Film purists would probably suggest James Whale's Frankenstein. I suggest Brian DePalma's Carrie.
In the film's first scene, we are inside a high school shower stall in which we close into a rather plain girl taking a shower. The music is somber and almost Stepfordish. Then, as we close in to Carrie's face, her hands run down her body as she bathes then comes up bloody. Even to those who knows that she's having her period are automatically jolted by the sight of blood due to the suddenness of it. But the ghoulishness of the following scene isn't the blood. In fact, the blood is not even the factor. It is the other girls in the shower. Terrified by her first period, she darts around terrified. Obviously, these girls know what's going on. But instead of helping, they ridicule her. They throw tampons on her and shout, "Plug it up!" with such vile adolescence. This spawns everything to come. This is the beginning of the end.
Carrie plays like a Greek tragedy. You know something's going to happen. You know that the vile girls who got punished for their actions are going to get back at her. Not in just any little way, but big time. But how? Their opportunity comes when one their own, Sue Snell (Amy Irving in the beginning of a great career for her), tries to make amends in a very unusual way. She insists that her boyfriend (William Katt), take Carrie to the prom instead of her. Her reasoning is flawed, but it doesn't matter if we understand, as long as she does. He goes along with this after considerable objections, including Carrie's. The human drama is the most important part of this film. Especially when you have a cleverly cast group of teenagers playing the leads and backup, you want to shine everything you have on them.
But Carrie's life has other larger problems. Her mother (Piper Laurie in an unforgettable performance) is a religious fanatic. Their house almost a monastery with crucifixes everywhere. She probably wouldn't let Carrie go to school if she'd have things her way. And before her daughter's period, she didn't have to worry much. But now boys are involved and her daughter is starting to rebel. This is beginning to rattle the hornet's nest. What Laurie and DePalma do with this character is to show her seep deeper and deeper into madness the more Carrie pushes away. Only until the very end do you see just how psychotic this woman is.
And there are those things that Carrie is able to do like making things move on their own. Now in other scary movies, this will be THE focus point. This is the ringer for the story's climax after all. But it only plays a small part up to the end, where we're trying to get all the pieces connected up to the prom. But we see things from time to time with this power almost as foreshadowing for what is to come.
By the time we get to the prom, the trap is set, the pieces are in motion and what happens on the stage as Carrie is named prom queen (thanks to the conspirators), becomes inevitable. What Carrie becomes is tragic, not horrific. The true evil are those kids who set the trap. What they get for what they've done is consequence.
You can tell that DePalma had Greek Tragedy in mind as he directed this film. Foreshadowing is subtle, but obvious. Take the scene where Carrie and her date dance. He's apparently falling under Carrie's spell. Maybe he's even falling in love with her. The camera's circling around them, slowly at first, then faster and faster as they dance counter to the camera movement, giving the sensation of spiraling out of control (side note: It wasn't what happened to her that created the monster. It was when the prank knocked him unconscious that she snapped).
For Carrie, Sissy Spacek was crucial. The film works or fails on her performance. Spacek, like Hilary Swank, is an actress that isn't considered a Hollywood cover girl. It's her plainness that allows us to accept Carrie. It's her performance that allows us to sympathize with this troubled girl. And Spacek underplays most of her scenes. She sees Carrie as a girl lost in the confusion of a womanhood she's unprepared for.
Back on the subject of scary movies, I don't know if you'll find Carrie a horror classic as I do. Horror today is linked with violence or cheap gags involving someone coming out of the dark saying, "Boo!” And those things are creepy. But what I think is more creepier are the things you'll more likely see on the streets where you love. The people you see but don't know. The horrors they lived through, or even worse, the horrors still held in their hearts.