Carrie, about a misfit teenager with telekinetic powers, who gets back at everyone who bullied her, is one of those stories that can interpreted in a variety of ways. It could be gothic horror, teen drama, a revenge story, or one of female rage. Carrie (1974) was Stephen King’s debut novel and Brian De Palma’s 1976 film resulted in Oscars nominations for Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie.
The film was also the first of the more than 100 adaptations of King’s works. De Palma’s Carrie, though lurid when looked at 50 years later (the camera is practically leering at all the naked bodies in the locker room), has long been considered the gold standard. The frames that look at once vivid and washed out, the long takes and the strident strings in the background score all contribute to a vision that is a nightmare and dream-like.
Carrie (English)
Showrunner: Mike Flanagan
Cast: Summer H. Howell, Samantha Sloyan, Siena Agudong, Alison Thornton, Joel Oulette, Josie Totah, Arthur Conti, Thalia Dudek, Amber Midthunder, Matthew Lillard
Episodes: 8
Runtime: 48–59 minutes
Storyline: An isolated teenager finds her first brush with the world and high school quite perilous
Boys Don’t Cry’s Kimberley Peirce’s 2013 version with De Palma’s blessings was quite bloodless (pun intended). When news broke of Carrie being adapted into a mini-series by Mike Flanagan, known for his work in the horror genre and Stephen King adaptations, expectations were suitably high.
And Flanagan has mostly delivered. It is only the weird conspiracy angle with Stranger Thingsand Itvibes that pushes what is an excellent adaptation slightly off track.
A still from ‘Carrie’
| Photo Credit:
Prime Video
After opening with increasingly hysterical 911 calls about death and destruction at school we go back to some months earlier when a check of a dead man’s house reveals a mother and young girl hidden in a closet. The court allows the mother, Margaret (Samantha Sloyan) to keep her daughter, Carrie, (Summer H. Howell) only if she takes a job and Carrie goes to school.
Carrie is polite, kind and a voracious reader. She is curious about the world and wishes to learn about all the things she missed out on. The students at Ewen High School are the usual mix of good, bad and thoroughly rotten — from popular Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) and her sweet boyfriend Tommy Ross (Joel Oulette), to mean girls Chris (Alison Thornton) and Tina (Josie Totah).
The teachers, including gym teacher Rita Desjardin (Amber Midthunder), principal Grayle (Matthew Lillard), guidance counselor Peter Morton (Tim Bagley) and Peist (Rahul Kohli) try to help Carrie with varying degrees of success.
While keeping the broad strokes of the King’s story bookended by the period and the prom, Flanagan gives backstories to the characters to deepen our understanding of them. Chris is no longer a spoilt brat. She is dealing with her parents’ divorce, and her sketchy lawyer father’s (Michael Trucco) bankruptcy, which means she cannot go to Duke as she did not think to apply for financial aid.
When she sees her best friend, Sue, being kind to Carrie, Chris sees that as a rejection and turns her rage into the meme account that causes all the trouble. Margaret is not just a religious fanatic. From her point of view, and from all her husband’s conspiracy theories, she is definitely in the right to protect her daughter from all the evil outside.
A still from ‘Carrie’
| Photo Credit:
Prime Video
Also, it is not one grand evil plan concocted by a moustache-twirling villain that causes the death and destruction on prom night, but a series of small, wrong decisions, and unfortunate events that put Carrie and Chris on a collision path.
Howell and Sloyan lead the excellent performances lending a truthfulness and roundedness to their archetypal characters. Heather Graham as Chris’s mother paints a poignant picture of a woman who sees her daughter for who she is while loving her nevertheless.
Arthur Conti is filling some big shoes as the delinquent Billy Nolan, a role John Travolta played radiating a great deal of self satisfaction in the De Palma version. There is a hat tip to De Palma in the burning town with a poster advertising a Brian de Palma retrospective in 35 mm.
Music by Flanagan regulars, Newton Bros, drums up suitable amounts of angst and dread. None of the additions to the mini-series seem like needless padding as the episodes are propelled by recognisable though regrettable behaviours.
Just like De Palma’s Carrie was a version of its time with the big hair and gratuitous nudity, so too does this version speak to the anxieties of social media, doomscrolling and 24-hour news cycles. It is only the addition of secret government programmes that takes the focus away from the deeply human tragedy of Carrie in this otherwise beautifully acted, written and produced show.
Carrie is currently streaming on Prime Video
Published – October 08, 2026 11:57 am IST
