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Carrie

Threat advisory: Elevated - Significant risk of entertaining activities

Movie propaganda

Carrie

is the story of a young girl with telekinesis, the power to move objects by the force of her mind.

The school wallflower and the brunt of her classmates' jokes, Carrie's revenge is the focus of this tense and stylish horror film. This is the film that made Sissy Spacek a star and featured John Travolta and Amy Irving in their first important screen roles. Carrie established director Brian De Palma as a new creative force in motion pictures.

Based on the novel by Stephen King, screenplay by Lawrence D Cohen.

Cinematic intelligence sources

Studios and distributors:

20th Century Fox

Intelligence analyst

Special Agent Matti

Theatrical report

Big hair. Really big hair.

*Shudders*

Apart from that, Carrie is a fun romp through teen geek angst in the stereotyped way that only Americans can: by passing through the rite of passage called The Prom. Anyone else would call it a school dance but no-o-o, the Yanks have to make a big deal of it and only have one each year for the graduating class (so much for university students being under-graduates), blah, blah, blah.

Oh, I got side-tracked. Oops. Being the 70s, the acting is bland yet over done (art imitates life) except for the three people of whom this film made stars: Sissy, John and Amy. All three are abnormally subtle (for the times). John plays the dumb hunk with great believability. Amy is the in crowd girl with a mind of her own. Sissy is the school loser from hell. There was a school loser at my primary school although she was nowhere near as bad as Carrie (and had no skills whatsoever, let alone a talent for telekinesis). Ruth disappeared at high school where there were no losers, just different people who hung out with different crowds. There was no In Crowd, either, and no super jock, no school bully, no school bitch... I wonder how much of American teen movies is based in reality. Or are Americans so drastically different from the rest of the world?

Ahem. I'm drifting again, but the answer is probably Yes. Oh, well, at least it gives the rest of the world something common to look down on.

As for goriness and scariness, Carrie is no shakes on Friday the thirteenth let alone a masterpiece like Alien. The terror, or horror, lies in putting yourself into the film. Who were you at school: the tormentor or the tormented? The bystander or the activist? The innocent or the victim? There's not a lot of scope for an Aussie to play this game as Australia is, despite Little Johnny Howard's best efforts, a fairly egalitarian society. Jocks may have had their moment in the sun at high school but no-one outside the sporting circle paid them much attention. Not to mention which there's no great event where a loser can get her revenge.

All in all, Carrie is an entertaining night in, as funny as it is frightening. It spawned a sequel (The rage: Carrie 2) which says more about Hollywood than it does about the quality of the film. Good for a trip down memory lane or to see what all the fuss was about.