Carrie (1976)

If anything, watching older Brian De Palma movies is giving me a new-found appreciation for Nancy Allen, so there’s that.  Since I watched Blow Out the other day, I’ve decided to revisit older De Palma movies that I had not seen and had reputations of being classics.  I’ll also be watching The Black Dahlia.  This is the original 1976 version of Carrie, not the 1999 sequel, nor the 2002 TV movie version that was designed to set up a TV series.

If I’m learning anything from watching older De Palma movies, it’s that he doesn’t have a gift for making movies timeless.  Yes, I can sit here and say that it’s a great movie, but a teenager nowadays, in 2011, is most likely going to find it laughable.  It’s not just technology and clothes, it’s atmosphere, it’s execution.  Perhaps if Bernard Herrmann hadn’t died before the film was completed, the score wouldn’t be so jarringly bad (in my opinion).  It’s the acting too, and this movie does have great acting – Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie were deservedly nominated for Oscars – but there’s also just jaw-droppingly bad acting throughout.  AND WHAT THE HELL WAS WITH THAT VOMIT-INDUCING PROM DANCE SPINNING SHIT.  Horrible!

It’s certainly a good movie, but there are a load of flaws throughout and SPOILER ALERT why was the killing of two of the biggest assholes in movie history, John Travolta and Nancy Allen’s characters, so goddamn anti-climatic and emotionless.  Carrie (Spacek) was fucking PISSED and all she did was spin their car out and turn it into a fireball.  I don’t even know if she knew who was in the car at the time.  I’m not sure if the ending to the movie has been highly praised or what, but De Palma knows shit about ending his movies in a satisfactory fashion.

3.5 / 5