Kids These Days Don't Pour Blood On Their Classmates Anymore
Carrie is, and always has been, a very important story. But how has it aged? And how did the movie change it for a wider audience?
Every new horror movie I watch immediately becomes my favorite, but if I really had to choose one, my favorite horror movie would be Carrie. I watched the movie a good while after I read the book for the first time, but I’d read it frequently enough that I was able to compare and contrast them well. This article will be a little different from the others in that I will be comparing the book and the movie, as well as the messages in them, in tandem with comparing the fear in them between when they first came out and now.
Carrie was the first book I can remember reading that I considered “real” horror. For a long time, I told myself that I didn’t like horror, despite consuming plenty of it (Goosebumps, Gravity Falls, John Bellairs’ books, etc.). After a bit of that, I finally acknowledged my obvious love of horror, and decided to get more into it. I chose Carrie as my official starting point for a few reasons. The first was that it was one I knew a lot about. The second was that it was Stephen King, and I felt like I ought to read Stephen King in order to be a true horror fan. And the third was that something about the concept just kind of fascinated me. Even before I read the book or watched the movie, I fell a little in love with the character of Carrie White. She was isolated, and angry, and hurting, and she thought she couldn’t do anything about it. She was tormented for facts about her body she couldn’t control and died because of it. But, of course, I knew the ending. How could I not? The bucket of pig’s blood on the prom queen’s head and the destruction that follows is an infamous image in pop culture, and is referenced in countless other pieces of media - including my second favorite TV show, Derry Girls. That scene, more than anything else about Carrie, was the reason that I read it.
The destruction of Chamberlain, Maine is far more brutal in the book than it is in the movie. In the book, the whole town gets destroyed, completely decimated, burned to the ground. There are snippets of articles and interviews about Prom Night throughout the book that add to the dread, and one written into the last part book reports four hundred and forty deaths, with eighteen people missing. Another establishes Chamberlain as a ‘ghost town’. In the movie, the school is destroyed, Chris Hargensen and Billy Nolan killed, Margaret White crucified, and, finally, the White home destroyed. Chamberlain’s destruction in the movie is almost quiet, even as it tries for more extreme violence than the book. In the book, Prom Night has a dreamy quality to it, a slow growing panic as the people in town realize what’s happening. Carrie’s death is slow and quiet and sad, as is her mother’s. Sue Snell is not at Prom, and is with Carrie when she dies. The movie has Carrie die in her home as it falls in and burns around her. Her mother is crucified with kitchen knives in reference to the religious mania that fueled her and her abuse. Chamberlain’s destruction is a spectacle on the big screen. So much so that the movie nearly succeeds in its goal of distracting the watcher from the fact that it took Carrie’s power from her.
Is there a true villain in Carrie? In the book, there are many contenders. It could be Chris Hargensen, pourer of blood. Or maybe Sue Snell, the reason Carrie went to Prom in the first place. Margaret White, abusive, isolating, insane. Or maybe it’s Carrie herself. There are as many contenders in the movie, but it does its best to make it look like it’s Carrie. At the risk of sounding pretentious, I think the question of who the villain of Carrie is is pointless. I think the villain might be meant to be society as a whole. I know it’s not Carrie herself.
The book and the movie only came out two years apart - 1974 and 1976, respectively. From what I can tell, the movie made more of a splash, pun intended. It must have, with such a famous ending. However, it was not true to the book in many ways that impacted its reception. First, as established, Carrie herself does much less in the way of destruction in the movie than in the book. I don’t like this for a number of reasons, but the biggest is that it sends the message that I believe, at its core, the story is trying to stifle - that women aren’t allowed to have power within their own bodies. I don’t think the fact that Carrie was as successful as it was in both book stores (one million paperback copies sold in the first year) and at the box office ($33.8 million in sales with a 1.8 million budget) was a coincidence given the proximity of its release to the Roe V Wade ruling. A story about a young woman realizing the incredible power she has upon getting her first period might not have come out to such great success if not for the recent ruling that made abortion legal. I think that’s where the fear came from that made Carrie so successful on its first release, the fear of a young woman who knew that what was being done to her was wrong, and that she had the power to do something about it. This made seeing her power taken away for the screen all the more devastating. It suggested that if women did want that power, they shouldn’t have it where people can easily see. Feminine rage is meant for books that can be closed, put back on shelves, imagined differently. It’s not meant for places where it can be indisputably seen.
When reading and watching Carrie, it is important to keep in mind that it was written by a man. A man who was helped along in writing it by his wife, but still a man. Carrie is a story that reflects a man’s fears, not a woman’s, and it is important to remember that.
Now, the question that poses itself in all of these articles: does this story hold up? I think it does. Carrie’s story is one that resonates with many young women, and is going to remain popular as such. It has also gained increasing importance recently, with the overturning of Roe V Wade. Now, more than ever, we need stories like Carrie that are about the importance of women’s bodily autonomy. I believe that the question of whether or not the fear of Chamberlain’s destruction holds up knowing it’s coming was pointless even when the movie first came out.
It was always clear that something went wrong on Prom Night. The book contains news articles and snippets from books written about the event throughout, making sure that the readers know that Carrie’s experience at prom is not going to be the happy event it could have been. The original posters for the movie had side-by-side pictures of Carrie being crowned prom queen, then Carrie covered in blood and bug-eyed, both terrifying and in terror. Everyone knew that Prom Night went horribly wrong when they watched the movie or read the book for the first time, and that’s the point.
Menstruation is inevitable for most people with a uterus, just like Chamberlain’s destruction is to its resients. Chamberlain’s destruction is horrifying. So, in many ways, is menstruation, especially coupled with the way society as a whole treats it. The scariest parts of Carrie’s story are centered around blood: The infamous pig blood scene at prom, followed by the gore-soaked carnage that Chamberlain falls to. And, the scene that terrified me the most in both the book and the movie, the scene in the showers where Carrie gets her first period. This scene speaks to a fear that is well-known to many people with periods, that of getting their first one. A lot of people get their periods after going through health class or The Puberty Presentation (tm) in school, but many don’t. Many people (myself included) get theirs while still in elementary school. Just like Carrie, they don’t know yet that it’s inevetable, but it’s happening, and, apparently, it’s normal. Happens to everyone, but we don’t talk about it except in whispers. Oh, and it’s probably gonna hurt like hell and make you feel sick and exhausted and angry, but you’re not actually sick so you shouldn’t ask for time off for it. No one taught Carrie that this was going to happen to her, and then when it did and she thought she was dying, she was mocked. (Plug it up, plug it up, plug it up) The girls’ chanting only serves to increase her fear. Can’t they see she’s dying? Why won’t they help? The fear of Chamberlain’s residents as their town burns around them is nothing compared to the raw terror in Carrie’s heart as she bleeds onto the white tile of the showers, thinking she’s dying, knowing that her mother will punish her for this if she gets home, all the while being yelled and jeered at just like normal.
The presence of menstruation is also greatly decreased in the movie as opposed to the book. In the movie, Carrie gets her first period an then menstruation is, in my memory, pretty much never mentioned again. In the book, it is a through line. It connects the main women of the story. Ms. Desjardin teaches Carrie about what’s happening to her, and you learn about her experience with her first period. The book begins, as does the movie, with Sue Snell joining in the jeers in the shower room. But the book ends with Sue being worried that she is pregnant as a result of her period being late, and then screaming as she feels it start just after Carrie dies. Sue and Carrie are connected, beginning to end, by the way their bodies function in the world they live in. And that was removed for the big screen. In the book, as Carrie dies, their minds are connected. Sue finds Carrie and shows her her mind, how she never hated Carrie. Then she feels as Carrie dies. There is none of that in the movie, just like how Carrie has less power and there is less mention of menstruation. This once again sends the message that women are not actually allowed power.
So, given all of that, do Carrie’s story and themes successfully translate between book and movie, as well as between generations? Absolutely. I believe that, at its core, Carrie is a tragedy. You know what’s coming from the beginning, but you still watch in dread before it happens. You know that Carrie’s pleas for help upon getting her period will lead to torment, but you still watch, shaking, silently begging the characters to break from their mold and help her, just this once. You know that Carrie being crowned prom queen will lead to her death, as well as her town’s, but you still want her to have that one moment of pure happiness as the crown is placed on her head. You read the articles and the interviews The destruction of Chamberlain, Maine, is a foregone conclusion, as is the death of Carrie White herself, and that is why this is a story that will always be scary: there’s nothing more terrifying than the inevitable.