Life for Carrie has been rough. She’s a severely abused teenage girl who’s been the butt of every joke at school for her whole life. Usually, she just takes it, and at this point, even expects it. But something has changed. After a very traumatic first period, it’s like blood isn’t the only thing that’s flowing from Carrie now. She feels a power within her, begging to come out. The only question is what will she do with it? Find out what happens when she finally stands up for herself in Stephen King’s classic masterpiece, Carrie.
[Warning: My review of Carrie contains some spoilers!]
Time for a new generation to meet Carrie
Stephen King first published his horror classic Carrie in 1974 and stunned the world with her sad tale of justice. It was so successful that the first Carrie movie was released within two years. With Sissy Spacek as the titular character, Carrie was forever immortalized as the prom date from Hell. Just over twenty years later, The Rage: Carrie 2 came out and introduced the concept of an abused and bullied girl taking out her enemies with psychic powers to a new generation.
Now Carrie is back again as a Prime Video streaming series for another generation. New adaptations can keep classic characters alive by introducing them to new fans, but let’s face it: nothing beats the original. With that in mind, I decided to reread Carrie and get traumatized all over again. Let me tell you, it hits differently as an adult, but it’s still terrifying, if for a whole new set of reasons.
The original story by Stephen King
Carrie has lived sixteen years of horror by the time that Carrie starts. Her mother is a religious nut who has abused her and secluded her from the world. She’s so obsessed with sex as a sin that anything even remotely related to sex is deemed evil and forbidden. As a result, Carrie grew up without much instruction in things other girls have, like lipstick, boys, or even periods. This leads to the traumatic opening scene. Carrie gets her first period in the school gym shower and has no idea what is happening. In fact, she thinks she’s bleeding to death and starts freaking out. Meanwhile, the other girls start bullying her (she has always been a favored target because of her weird upbringing and subsequent social awkwardness). They scream at her to “plug it up” and throw pads and tampons at her, which, of course, Carrie has no idea how to use or even what they’re for.
The whole event is horrible. I’m not sure how a man would feel reading it, but as a woman, the thought of being at your most vulnerable, naked, in pain, and confused, and being treated the way those girls treat Carrie is both horrifying and sad. It made me cry to read it and imagine how scared Carrie must have felt. King manages to write a scene featuring all women filled with authentic womanly horror in the 1970s. I think that’s something that needs to be acknowledged because it’s actually a pretty amazing feat for a man to have done in a time when things like periods weren’t talked about very much between women, let alone among mixed company.
Now back to the story. Carrie finds that with her new flow comes a different kind of power. She can control things with her mind. Her mother insists it is a sign of the devil, so Carrie keeps it to herself. But she also uses it, practicing every day to grow stronger.
One person feels bad about how they treated Carrie in the shower: Sue Snell. She feels so bad that she convinces her boyfriend, Tommy Ross, to take Carrie to the prom instead of her. Tommy doesn’t really understand Sue’s logic, but he agrees. Carrie is hesitant but accepts Tommy’s offer and, for the first time ever, feels excited about a normal teenage event. But she remains wary, sure this is just another joke. When the ringleader of her bullies, Chris Hargensen, finds out that Carrie will be at prom, she decides to get “revenge.” She plans a cruel prank to show Carrie who’s boss. Too bad she didn’t know what Carrie was capable of; too bad she didn’t realize that when you finally push someone too far, they snap, and so does everything around them.
Carrie: Hero or Villain
Carrie is a horror story, and she kills an entire town when she finally snaps. It’s clear that she’s the villain, right? But is she really? Or is she a hero who finally gave her tormentors what they deserved? Personally, I lean toward the hero side, but it’s a real gray area because she didn’t just get revenge on those who wronged her; she ended up destroying basically the whole town. Of course, with the level of abuse that she had suffered, it’s hard to hold her accountable. Still, pretty much the whole town did go up. I guess she was an antihero before antiheroes were cool.
And there’s the fact that she dies at the end. Does that make up for her hurting innocent people as well as guilty ones? Is it fair that she dies just as she finally gets free of her abusers? Is anyone innocent when they let a child be treated like that for her whole life? Those are heavy questions you find yourself contemplating after you finish Carrie. Personally, I hate that she has to die, but it is also the kindest ending for her. After all, she had just destroyed the whole town, and she has no street smarts. She can’t just disappear and start over somewhere else. They’d find her, and there’s only one real future for her after what she did: a government guinea pig. She would have escaped one prison only to be put in another. And even if her powers proved strong enough to get her out of government lockdown, she’d likely end up dead trying to escape them. There was never going to be a happy ending for Carrie, so the kindest thing to do was let her get her revenge and then let her be free, the only way she could be.
Horror on so many levels
When I first read Carrie as a teen, I was disturbed by her life, but the real horror was in her prom night celebration. As an adult, I find everything that led up to prom night to be the real horror story. Prom night was just the inevitable conclusion of Carrie’s life. Being able to read the same story decades apart and finding a whole new but still terrifying take on it is awesome. You can never really read the same book twice, I guess (a favorite saying of mine). I hope that more people are inspired to revisit this classic to be spooked out all over again, by whatever strikes them as most disturbing this time around.
Rating: 9/10
Carrie by Stephen King is available now!
Learn more about the book at the official website for the title.
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