Carrie (18.)
Directed by Brian De Palma. 1976.
Starring Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, William Katt, John Travolta, Nancy Allen, Betty Buckley and P. J. Soles. 98 mins. Out on Blu-ray from Arrow.
De Palma's version of Stephen King's Carrie is an absolute horror movie classic; but as absolute horror movie classics go, it is not one of the best. It's one of those films where you remember the good bits and forget what's in between. And in Carrie, there really isn't much between those good bits, though the film does at least manage to whip through them quickly. It barely seems to have started when the prom sequence begins and I was thinking, what happened to the film? Aren't we going to find out some more about these people, or about Carrie telekinetic powers?
I think perhaps the memory forgets how quintessentially De Palma this film is. The De Palma way is to identify the good bits, work out the most striking way to film them – usually with a long single take tracking shot, split screen, slow motion – and leave the bits in between to try and take care of themselves. The only real difference between this and, say, Phantom of The Paradise, or The Fury, or Body Double, is that lots of people like Carrie.
The good bits are the beginning and the end. The beginning is the girls' school shower scene. A girls locker room shower scene invariably has its merits, and De Palma's subverts it by gliding us through all the nubile horseplay to a timid little child alone in the corner, about to abruptly discover some of the facts of life. The other good bit is the lengthy finale at the prom and its gory aftermath. But what happens between is rattled through with little feeling or regard.
Seen four decades on it is clear that this a moment of time. The casting sessions for Carrie were shared with George Lucas for Star Wars and the cast that was assembled is like a horror movie equivalent of Grease, all those twenty-somethings fretting about prom night. The pick of these is Sissy Spacek in the lead role. She was 25 years old at the time but so childlike, so credibly pre-pubescent that it gives the film a queasy intensity.
Extras.
Arrow always send out their discs ladened with extras but there are two pages of them for this, documentaries and featurettes and commentaries. Some come from a DVD release in 2001 but some have been made by Arrow just for this.
Directed by Brian De Palma. 1976.
Starring Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, William Katt, John Travolta, Nancy Allen, Betty Buckley and P. J. Soles. 98 mins. Out on Blu-ray from Arrow.
De Palma's version of Stephen King's Carrie is an absolute horror movie classic; but as absolute horror movie classics go, it is not one of the best. It's one of those films where you remember the good bits and forget what's in between. And in Carrie, there really isn't much between those good bits, though the film does at least manage to whip through them quickly. It barely seems to have started when the prom sequence begins and I was thinking, what happened to the film? Aren't we going to find out some more about these people, or about Carrie telekinetic powers?
I think perhaps the memory forgets how quintessentially De Palma this film is. The De Palma way is to identify the good bits, work out the most striking way to film them – usually with a long single take tracking shot, split screen, slow motion – and leave the bits in between to try and take care of themselves. The only real difference between this and, say, Phantom of The Paradise, or The Fury, or Body Double, is that lots of people like Carrie.
The good bits are the beginning and the end. The beginning is the girls' school shower scene. A girls locker room shower scene invariably has its merits, and De Palma's subverts it by gliding us through all the nubile horseplay to a timid little child alone in the corner, about to abruptly discover some of the facts of life. The other good bit is the lengthy finale at the prom and its gory aftermath. But what happens between is rattled through with little feeling or regard.
Seen four decades on it is clear that this a moment of time. The casting sessions for Carrie were shared with George Lucas for Star Wars and the cast that was assembled is like a horror movie equivalent of Grease, all those twenty-somethings fretting about prom night. The pick of these is Sissy Spacek in the lead role. She was 25 years old at the time but so childlike, so credibly pre-pubescent that it gives the film a queasy intensity.
Extras.
Arrow always send out their discs ladened with extras but there are two pages of them for this, documentaries and featurettes and commentaries. Some come from a DVD release in 2001 but some have been made by Arrow just for this.
