Carrie (1976)

WHAT WENT WRONG

In this episode of What Went Wrong, hosts Chris Winterbauer and Lizzie Bassett perform a deep dive into the 1976 horror classic Carrie. They

Key takeaways

• Brian De Palma utilized a 'Dracula-style' structure in the film, though he streamlined the narrative into a more linear format than the book.
• The film serves as a significant homage to Hitchcock, particularly referencing techniques used in Psycho.

Main topics

• Brian De Palma's directing style
• Stephen King's literary origins

Notable quotes

I remember an immense feeling of possibility at the idea as if I had been ushered into a vast building filled with closed doors.

Conclusion

The episode provides a rich historical context for understanding how D

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) You go 15 seconds back and then 30 ahead. You land mid-sentence so you're scratching your head. What went wrong and what can you do? Listen ad-free with just a click or two. Speaker 6 (0:13) Well, howdy folks, and welcome back to another episode of What Went Wrong, your favorite podcast, yada yada, blah blah blah, I don't need to say the rest. We wanted to let you know that we are now offering bonus and ad-free episodes to all Patreon, Spotify, and Apple subscribers for only $5 a month. Well, now that's less than going to one-third of a matinee at your local theater. Just so you know, because of technical limitations with Apple, you Apple Special Features recipients may not see the ad-free episode. until the afternoon on release day. Y Speaker 1 (0:42) 'all gonna have Speaker 5 (0:42) to be patient. Speaker 6 (0:43) Now go on and sign up on Patreon, Spotify, or Apple. And have a good day now, y'all. Speaker 5 (0:48) You go 15 seconds back and then 30 ahead. You land mid-sentence so you're scratching your head. What went wrong and what can you do? Listen out free with just a click or two. Speaker 2 (1:19) Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to another episode of What Went Wrong, your favorite podcast full stop that just so happens to be about movies and how it's nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one, let alone the first in perhaps over a hundred adaptations of the most prolific American horror writer of the 20th and 21st centuries. As always, I'm Chris Winterbauer, joined by Lizzie Bassett. Lizzie, where are we headed today? And why is high school? The scariest place we've ever been. We're Speaker 6 (1:50) headed to the prom, Chris. Get on your peach-colored dress and cover up your dirty pillows because we're going underground into Carrie. I'm so excited to talk about this. I have read Carrie, which I'd never read before. I know you have. People may not know this. Chris is a Stephen King superfan. I believe you've read, how many have you read of his books? Speaker 2 (2:11) At least 40, maybe 50. 40! Wow. I read basically everything through, is it Duma Key? I think in like 2011 or so. And then I kind of fell off when we graduated from undergrad, but I was pretty consistent through the mid-aughts. Okay. Speaker 6 (2:26) Well, I need to get on this bandwagon because I absolutely loved it. I read The Outsider, which I loved. I read The Stand, which I loved. I've read like a lot of the big hits, but I haven't really gotten into more of the other stuff. And as you said, he's unbelievably prolific. So there's plenty for me to read. So this year for the month of October, if anybody doesn't know yet, we are doing a box office book club for our subscribers. We will be covering four new releases and also reading the books that they're based on. Those are going to be Verity, Incidents Around the House, which is adapted into Other Mommy, Sense and Sensibility, and Wildwood. So that's part of the reason why we're covering this. Obviously, this is a book to screen adaptation, but also it's... It's the 50th anniversary of Carrie this year, and we are getting Mike Flanagan's miniseries adaptation of Carrie in October. So now's the time Speaker 2 (3:12) to talk about this. There's one more reason, Lizzie, that I'm so glad you picked it for this exact moment. What? The myriad ways in which this film is an homage to Psycho. Yes. Which we just covered, and I didn't fully appreciate. I Speaker 6 (3:25) know, an unintentional connection, but yes. Speaker 2 (3:28) Interesting. Yeah. Speaker 6 (3:29) Well, Chris, let's talk about it. was your experience with Carrie and what did it feel like rewatching it, especially now after Psycho? Speaker 2 (3:36) Really quick before we even dive into that. If you guys hear any small children running around screaming, it's my telekinetic children terrorizing each other at the vacation rental that we are with my extended family at. So apologies for any background noise. However, I do think it's appropriate. Speaker 6 (3:49) Honestly, I do feel like if any child is going to be telekinetic, it might be Nora. Just throwing it out there. Speaker 2 (3:55) Maybe. But if any child could use sheer force to destroy a town or high school, it's Eve. And so just Speaker 6 (4:01) like her sheer strength. That's true. She's a bruiser. Speaker 2 (4:05) Yeah. So Carrie, I have read Carrie before. It was Stephen King's first. I'm sure you'll go into this published novel, but it's not the first one of his that I read. But. What I always loved about Carrie was how unusually brief it is for a Stephen King novel. This is before he got into candidly things like The Stand or It, for example, where we get the more, I don't know the exact right word, but indulgent King, perhaps you could say. Speaker 6 (4:29) Maybe a little bit more like world building or sort of universe building. Speaker 2 (4:34) There's an ensemble quality. Carrie feels very focused. I think it's a really great book. It's really interesting that this was his first published book because it's about a high school girl. And he seems very far removed from this. I don't Speaker 6 (4:45) want Speaker 2 (4:45) to dive into the writing. I'm sure you'll talk about it, Lizzie. All to say, when I saw the movie, like many horror films of the 70s, by the time I saw it, it felt dated relative to the updated sort of horror films that I'd seen in the 90s, for example. So re-watching it for the podcast, I kind of assumed, oh, this is going to feel a little bit, you know. dated, maybe it won't hold up as well. And as one audience member kind of rudely, although accurately pointed out, I have a real blind spot in my filmography with Brian De Palma, who I've seen a number of his movies, but I definitely don't know his work as well as other directors we've covered. Okay. Anyway, I enjoyed this movie growing up. I always thought, oh, this is just the showcase film for Sissy Spacek. You're just with her the entire time. That was my memory of this movie. re-watching it, A, from the very first shot, the slow motion with the sort of operatic, sort of pastoral score that opens this scene of the girls in the locker room, and it's like the virgin spring, and she's bathing herself. Immediately, I was like, oh, yeah, okay. Brian De Palma knows what he's doing. This guy is a master of juxtaposition. And I gotta say, this movie just surprised me at every turn. I forgot how much the film actually focuses on the terrorizing characters as opposed to Carrieta, Sissy Spacek. I vaguely remember Piper Laurie's performance as the mother, but Betty Buckley as Miss Collins really stood out to me in this rewatch as a fantastic performance. She's great. Yeah, and then of course, like, you know, Amy Irving and whatnot and John Travolta, they all pop up. He's one of my favorite parts of this movie. Yeah, he's such a turd. And I guess what I really felt watching it this time was I thought it was such an interesting exploration of kind of the indiscriminate pervasiveness of violence, physical violence around Carrie. And then Carrie sort of, in the end, snaps and then externalizes all of those internalized feelings through her own telekinetic power. But the sheer volume of slaps in this movie, for example, is really shocking. And I know some of it is the time, but I also think it's Brian De Palma making points about the casual cruelty with which these characters are interacting with one another in certain ways. And maybe I'm wrong, but... A lot of that is in the book, but yes, almost all of it is on the Speaker 6 (6:57) page. Speaker 2 (6:58) Fair. But I'm saying, be it King or De Palma's interpretation of King, but the storytellers here, I think, are doing a great job of pointing to the ways in which, you know, violence begets violence, and it just spirals out of control. And I know in the book, the climax is much bigger. Speaker 6 (7:12) Let's save that. We're going to talk about it, because yes, the ending of the movie is in one very important way quite different from the book. Yeah. And I understand why they did it for this. Speaker 2 (7:22) I found, especially after watching Psycho and watching a bunch of Hitchcock, And then I did watch some De Palma that was also inspired by some other Hitchcock movies. We can talk about another movie. Did you watch Sisters? I didn't watch Sisters this time. I saw Sisters years ago. I did watch Obsession, which came out the same year. And... Anywho, so I thought this movie held up wonderfully well overall. And I'm really curious, Lizzie, about some choices that he makes in terms of nudity, etc. And how you reacted to those because I had a specific reaction, but I may be wrong. And I also love the way he used music in this movie. And I feel like the way that the music is used, yes, there are some specific horror homages. There is a screeching violin stab that is so Bernard Herrmann. Very intentionally, yes. Very intentionally. But the way that that final cue as the house is in play, floating around Carrie and her mother, does not lean into the melodrama or the terror of the moment, but almost juxtaposes a sort of beauty, right, to that scene. I thought was so effective. And it was actually kind of one of the things that I was saying, oh, at the end of Thelma and Louise, I almost wished we had the Hans Zimmer You're So Cool score juxtaposed against the tragedy of that decision. I felt like De Palma pulled that off in this movie. Anyway, I just love it. Speaker 6 (8:31) I Speaker 2 (8:31) love he shoots the third act leading to the bucket poll, like it's a political assassination about to happen, right? You know, you're following the rope as if it's a fuse and the characters are looking at one another. The use of slow motion, I actually think is like pretty judicious and very effective in this movie. So I thought it was great. I really liked it. Speaker 6 (8:47) I'm with you. I was reading, I was almost done with the book when I watched the movie. And when the movie started and I saw how much nudity there was right away, I felt like my stomach kind of twisted and I thought, oh no, is this going to be like lascivious in a way that the book is not? And I guess I should say, so I had seen Carrie many, many years ago. I probably haven't seen this for at least 15, maybe even 20 years. And I remember enjoying it. I remember certain images from it, obviously. But it's not a movie that I had rewatched. And obviously, I'd never read it before. And the thing that I was really struck by in the book is that Stephen King, obviously, he was a 20, I think, six-year-old man when he wrote this. And it is such a... both compassionate and searing look at what it is to be a teenage girl and also a teenage boy. I think actually John Travolta's character, Billy, does get quite a bit more sort of internal exploration in the book that's really fascinating. Basically, the way he's written feels very much like a prototype for characters we get later in The Stand, for example, the sort of sociopath. Speaker 1 (9:59) I was so Speaker 6 (9:59) impressed by the way that Stephen King wrote about teenagers, about the violence specifically of teenage girls, because it felt very, very accurate to how vicious teenage girls can really be. But he does it in such a way that doesn't feel exploitative at all. And I think that to be a man writing about that. is extremely impressive. And that's not to be like, oh, men can't write about women. It's not that. It's that he doesn't have this lived experience, which he will say. And so he's able to actually put himself in the shoes of people and tell their stories in a way that I just thought was so amazing. So anyway, when the movie started, I was like, oh, this feels very opposed to the way that he actually wrote both the shower scene and the book itself, almost like leering. But as the movie continued and I settled into it, I understood more what Brian De Palma was doing, which is that he is heightening everything. He is making it campy. He is leaning into the satire of it. And I loved it. I thought it was great. You know, I think the nudity at the beginning, I don't know, maybe you do need it to a certain degree, particularly because the women that are in that scene are not teenage girls. Like those are very clearly very developed women in their 20s, you know? And there is something about that juxtaposed with how little Sissy Spacek is. that does do something effective for the narrative. So I don't think he's just showing the bodies. But you mentioned the nudity. I mean, what did you think? Speaker 2 (11:25) It almost felt like he was doing it also as a bit of a misdirect to the audience. Yeah. It almost felt like he was doing it as a sort of cheeky, you know, oh, yeah, come get comfortable. Come look. I dare you, you know what I mean, to leer at this. And like, this movie is going to fuck with you by the end of it. You know, this is not actually what I'm doing. I totally agree with you. I think there is a Garden of Eden quality to that. like the imagery that's evoked throughout the movie, the Christ imagery that he puts into it, the speaking of Eve as weak, et cetera, you know, this sort of banishment from the Eden. This idea of like women being comfortable with their sexuality. I do think it sort of sets up this idea that there's this fraternity or sorority of sisterhood that's happening, right? All of these girls are running around. Like you said, they're very developed. Like there's this sense of we are all comfortable with one another. And then it tucked in the corner, right? A sissy space, the one virgin sort of of the group, literally washing her body clean with soap in the way that she will be drenched with blood at the end of this film. And then she, you know, has her period and everyone just turns on her. The group just ostracizes her immediately. for her nakedness, you know what I mean? But for her ignorance, I found it effective, even though I could see somebody else having the interpretation of De Palma just wanted some tits and ass in the beginning of his movie, you know? Yeah, I Speaker 6 (12:36) don't think that's true. But it was the initial gut reaction that I had. I will say Sissy Spacek, as we'll talk about, is not an obvious choice for this character, especially when you read the book, because she is so striking. and so beautiful. I understand that she's unusual looking, but I did find myself wishing, and she is wonderful. I'm not saying that she shouldn't have been cast in this movie. She's amazing. I'm thrilled that she is. I did find myself wondering what it would be like to actually watch a version of Carrie where you see a more plain, more normal looking girl. in this role, I think it would potentially make it harder to watch because it would amplify the cruelty to a certain degree. She's so beautiful that some of it almost makes you feel like, well, you know, but she looks like that. Like she'll be able to turn it around, you know? Speaker 2 (13:25) Yeah. But that being said, I do think in high school, there's cruelty that transcends looks. There's other ways of being an outsider. And the other thing that I think it helps with is with William Katz's character, with Tommy. I do think you actually start to believe that dynamic more as a result of maybe Sissy Spacek's casting. And there is an element of her when she takes on her power towards the end of the film, even before she does it in a negative way. There's sort of like things are going to change around here and she goes and she's made the draft. I don't know. I think there are some benefits to it as well. Speaker 3 (13:54) I Speaker 2 (13:54) can totally see the downsides, but. Speaker 6 (13:56) Yeah. And just to clarify, you know, the way that Stephen King writes Carrie, she's not like deeply unattractive. She's just a more normal, more average looking girl who by the end in the same way has, you know, spruced herself up. She's done the she's all that transition at the end into the prom dress. But I did find it interesting that King did explicitly write Carrie's mother in particular as being overweight and Carrie as either feeling that she is or. Anyway, there was some stuff in there about them being overweight that they did obviously erase for this. Speaker 2 (14:28) We don't need to get into it, but King has a tendency of doing that with his somewhat fallible characters. He did it in The Stand. He does it in a number of, like, it's a trope he leans into with It, and then eventually kind of tries to subvert, but doesn't really. So, yeah. I mean, I think it's common in a lot of books at the time. Speaker 6 (14:41) Yeah, 100%. So I don't know that you need that. I'm just saying there's something about how striking she is that makes it slightly more palatable. But let's get into it. Our main sources for today are the 25th anniversary Acting Carrie Making Of documentary, of course, Stephen King's On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft, and many other articles, retrospectives, and interviews from the cast and crew. Here are the details as always. Carrie is directed by Brian De Palma, written by Lawrence D. Cohen, of course, adapted from the 1974 novel by Stephen King. Starring Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, Nancy Allen, William Catt, Betty Buckley, John Travolta, Priscilla Poynter, and more. The IMDb logline is, a social misfit with psychic powers turns prom night into hell on earth. As we said, Carrie was the breakout novel for Stephen King. So let's start by talking a little bit about Mr. King. He was, of course, born in Portland, Maine in 1947. When he was only two years old, his father abandoned his family, leaving his mother to raise him and his brother David by herself. As King put it, from a very early age, I wanted to be scared. He had a deep fascination with horror, starting in the early 50s with movies like The Creature from the Black Lagoon and the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, as well as The Brain from Planet Eris, which according to him was, quote, in some way, I've never been able to figure out the basis for my novel, Carrie. Now, we discussed this on The Shining, so I will keep this background brief, but King's writing career really started with, I would say, some light plagiarism. He would copy combat Casey comics, but then he would add his own descriptions when he didn't like what was written. He showed them to his mother, not betraying exactly what he had done, and she was, of course, amazed, but then he admitted they weren't exactly original works, to which she said, write one of your own, Stevie. I bet you could do better. So King wrote in on writing, quote, I remember an immense feeling of possibility at the idea as if I had been ushered into a vast building filled with closed doors and had been given leave to open any I liked. There were more doors than one person could ever open in a lifetime, I thought, and still think. Now in the 60s, after hitchhiking home one night from a screening of The Pit and the Pendulum, he decided he would turn the movie into a book. Novelizations. Did Stephen King invent them? I don't know. Also hilarious because of course The Pit and the Pendulum was Already a book. It's based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. But he wrote it in two days, printed about 40 copies, brought them all to school, charged for them, and he sold two dozen copies in his first day. He eventually won a scholarship to the University of Maine, where he met and fell in love with... Speaker 2 (17:05) Tabitha. Speaker 6 (17:06) Tabitha. Tabitha Spruce, who would eventually, of course, become Tabitha King, his wife and partner. But something else happened in college. He picked up odd jobs here and there to make money, and one of them was working as a janitor in a high school. Now, when he was scrubbing the rust stains off the showers in the girls' locker room, there was something different about the bathrooms than the boys' rooms. Obviously, there were no urinals, and also the showers actually had curtains. But more specifically, Chris, there were some strange metal boxes attached to the tile walls. They were too small to be for paper towels. So he asked his co-worker, what are those? To which the man replied, pussy plugs for them certain days of the month. Speaker 2 (17:43) Well... Haven't heard that alliteration before. Speaker 6 (17:46) Now you have. He graduated in 1970 and his daughter Naomi was born the same year. He and Tabitha married shortly thereafter and had another child, Joe, two years later. Unsurprisingly, neither one was planned and suddenly Stephen King found himself desperately needing a reliable source of income to support his family. He struggled to find teaching jobs initially and instead worked in a laundry while writing on the side. And he... did write on the side. As you pointed out at the top, he had already written three novels by the time Carey came along, and they all sat unpublished. They were Rage, The Long Walk, and The Running Man. And in 1973, the shit really hit the fan for the King family. They were living in a trailer outside Bangor, Maine, which is not a booming metropolis. They couldn't afford to fix the transmission on their car. Tabitha was working at Dunkin' Donuts, and they had no telephone. Stephen was still working at the laundry when he found himself thinking back to that janitor gig, and more specifically, those boxes in the girls' locker room. He thought about how exposed a young girl would be in that space, especially if the showers didn't have curtains. And an idea started to form. Quote, this one girl starts to have her period, only she doesn't know what it is. And the other girls, grossed out, horrified, amused, start pelting her with sanitary napkins. The girl begins to scream, all that blood. She thinks she's dying. that the other girls are making fun of her even while she's bleeding to death. She reacts, fights back, but how? Now, the how came from an article in Life magazine that he'd read years earlier, which posited that some percentage of reported poltergeist activity may in fact be telekinesis. Oh God, let's go back to the days when this is what was being published in reputable news sources. Chris, what is telekinesis? Speaker 2 (19:23) The ability to create physical disturbances, move things, etc. with your mind. With Speaker 6 (19:31) your mind! That's right. Now, the article also suggested there was some evidence that these powers may be stronger in young people, more specifically girls, around their menarche or advent of their first period. Suddenly, the two ideas collided and Carrie was born. Now, initially, he thought it would be a good short story that he could submit to magazine outlets like Playboy. While it might seem bizarre to pitch this to a men's magazine like Playboy, it does make more sense when you realize that these magazines paid for short stories. Playboy paid like $2,000, which would have been more than they needed to