Entertainment of 1976: Carrie

Welcome back the insanity that is Entertainment of 1976 and boy did I find us a nice family friendly film. Okay, I didn't but it was very slim pickings for family movies and I had no desire to watch Star Wars YET again. So instead, what say we watch a sweet sheltered and abused 17 year old girl responding in kind. One could suggest it may have to do with her nutty Christian fundamentalist mother but hey that could never happen, right? This is Carrie.

Still disco era?????  THE HORROR!!!

17 year old Carrie White (Sissy Spacek of Katherine, 3 Women, Heart Beat, The River, The Long Walk Home, JFK, The Grass Harp, If These Walls Could Talk and Nine Lives) is constantly berrated by her mother Margaret (Piper Laurie of The Hustler, The Eleventh Hour, Breaking Point, Carrie, The Woman Rebel, Tim, The Thorn Birds, Return to Oz, Appointment with Death, Twin Peaks, Trauma and The Grass Harp) leaving her shy, timid and completely inable to make friends. Feeling the Christ like love there. One day in the showers after gym class has her first very delayed period and having no idea what menstruation is she freaks out. The other girls decide to not bother to help the girl out they form a lynch mob led by popular girls Sue (Amy Irving of Carrie, Yentl, Micki + Maude, Crossing Delancey, A Show of Force and Deconstructing Harry) and Chris (Nancy Allen of Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, Robocop, Limit Up, Robocop 2, The Man Who Wouldn't Die, Against the Law and Out of Sight) by pelting her with tampons and pads.

The gym teacher shoos the thoughtless cows away and explains to Carrie what is going on with her body when a light-bulb explodes while Carrie is disturbed. Her mother refers her period as divine punishment for her sins and she needs to reflect and pray in a cramped closet for forgiveness. So our little gal is terrified to interact with humans so naturally, the entire PE class is under a mandatory attendance of a week-long detention workout session that rivals a drill sergeant's evil.

Shower hazing gets rough!

Sue feels bad for Carrie and tries to make amends by convincing her boyfriend Tommy (William Katt of First Love, Big Wednesday, The Rainmaker, The Greatest American Hero, House and White Ghost) to invite her the prom as a great practical joke. Carrie is skeptic but trying to deal with this growing power of what appears to be telekinesis and takes Tommy up on the prom. This of course leads to shenanigans on Chris's behalf... getting revenge on the girl that she tortured. Will the prom end in tears? Will Carrie feel accepted?

A few bits of info on this movie now. This was the first Stephen King novel adapted into a movie. The dizzying camera shot during the prom scene was created by putting William Katt and Sissy Spacek on a platform spun in one direction while the camera was dollied in another direction.

Given the success of Carrie at the box-office brought Stephen King to a wide range audience and improved his book sales. The prom scene alone took two weeks to shoot and required almost a grand total of 35 takes. Being invited to play Sue or Chris, Sissy Spacek was stunned with Director Brian De Palma sees her as the lead character and proposed she take up the role. So well known for the role of Carrie, Sissy Spacek would later perform the audio-book of Carrie. 

Well clearly she is in error as she being drug to the whipping closet.