72) Carrie

Carrie (1976)

Director: Brian De Palma

Starring: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, William Katt, Betty Buckley, Nancy Allen, John Travolta

I've never really been one for horror movies. Horror is probably the biggest gap in my movie experience. For my PhD and my Honours thesis before that I've been looking at the Hollywood Renaissance of the 1970s and one of the big features of that period was a rise in horror movies. So for a while I've had films like The Exorcist, The Omen and Carrie on my 'to watch' list but haven't got round to them. I picked up Carrie for $6.98 from JB HiFi earlier in the week and decided to harden-up and give it a look this evening.

Brought up in an oppressive home by an ultra-conservative, fundamentalist Christian mother (Laurie), the socially awkward Carrie (Spacek) freaks out in the locker room at school when she has her first period. The other girls in the class are given detention for taunting her about the incident and when the school glamour Chris Hargensen (Allen) refuses to complete the detention she has her ticket to the Prom confiscated. Another girl, Sue (Irving, the future ex-Mrs. Steven Spielberg), feels sorry for the way Carrie was treated so arranges for her boyfriend, the class hunk Tommy (Katt) to take Carrie to the Prom. However, determined to get Carrie, Christ devises a scheme to humiliate Carrie in front of everyone at the Prom. Though what no one realises is that Carrie has telekinetic powers and you don't want to get her angry.

Brian DePalma is a director who I am yet to really make my mind up about. I was quite underwhelmed when I saw Scarface, which is hailed as a classic, but on the other hand I really liked The Untouchables. DePalma has an obvious admiration for Alfred Hitchcock, and this is particularly apparent in Carrie. DePalma has studied Hitchcock and uses him as the template for how to do horror and suspense, although it must be said that, at least in this film, he hasn't quite hit the mark in terms of building suspense. His homage to Hitchcock extends to the soundtrack where moments of high stress are marked with those same piercing, stabbing strings that we know from Psycho.

While the majority of the characters are pretty standard and two dimensional, Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie put in great performances as Carrie and her mother. Carrie is a really well established, relatable character. Not so much relatable in the sense that we know what she's going through, but relatable in the sense that we all know someone she reminds us of. Her mother, while being a slightly less realistic and relatable character is none the less a really intimidating, oppressive presence. It creates a really strong contrast between the scenes at Carrie's home which are really intense, and the scenes at the high school which look like they've come straight out of a John Hughes film, typified by William Katt's massive blond, Dermott Brereton style perm, and John Travolta straight out of Welcome Back, Kotter.

In fact, in general I find the balance between the horror element and the high school element in this film really interesting. Really, for the majority of the movie the supernatural/horror element of the story is simply not present. The scenes which take place at the high school feel like they come from a completely different genre. The whole relationship between Carrie and Tommy almost feels like it's come straight out of Pretty in Pink or any one of those 'gawky, nerdy girl is brought out of her shell be the heart-throb guy' movies. Except in the case of Carrie, just before we get the final happy ending moment the film takes a massive turn and we jump straight back into horror film.

What makes this movie work is that Carrie is not your stereotypical horror villain. In fact, if anything she is the hero of the film. Because she is such a relatable character, we understand why she does what she does. We understand the motivating factors behind her actions and as a viewer you are much more inclined to relate to and feel empathy for Carrie than you are any of the other characters in the film. It did make me wonder though what the overall message of the film was. When it was still in the middle of the John Hughes part of the film you feel like you're watching that standard story of the weird kid at school who, once you get to know them, actually isn't that weird at all. In fact they're a really nice person. But when the film takes it's massive turn at the end the message seems to change to "If you know someone who seems a bit weird, it's probably because they are weird. In fact they are probably even weirder than you thought." At the end of the film, while that sympathy for Carrie remains, largely you are left not knowing whether that is what you are supposed to be feeling, and how you should be feeling towards the other characters. But hey, maybe that is my inexperience with horror films shining through, not knowing how I'm supposed to engage with them.

Some people regard Carrie as a classic of the horror genre. Others think it's not brilliant. I'm probably leaning more to the latter. It's failure to really build up suspense means that rather than being terrified during the films climactic scenes, you just sit there thinking "What the hell is going on?" Sissy Spacek's performance almost single handedly redeems what would have otherwise been a pretty mediocre film. It's another one of those films though, that watching it will unlock for you an often cited pop culture reference.