Barnes & Noble

The film that launched Brian De Palma's career as an A-list director, and one of the most flamboyantly gory hits of the 1970s, Carriedeftly mixed knowing wit with abject terror long before it became Hollywood convention. Based on Stephen King's novel, the plot concerns Carrie White (Sissy Spacek), a painfully shy high school girl who freaks out when she begins to menstruate. The ranting by her witchy, evangelical mother (Piper Laurie) and the teasing by her cooler classmates only add to her paranoid adolescent horror. Two particularly nasty peers (Nancy Allen and John Travolta) even plot to humiliate her at the senior prom, oblivious to the fact that, for Carrie, womanhood has arrived with telekinetic powers -- the ability to propel inanimate objects by force of her mind. The march toward the movie's climactic showdown, thanks to De Palma's virtuoso camera movement and bold use of color, is as grippingly satisfying as it gets. Spacek and Laurie turn in tremendous performances, and Amy Irving turns heads as a kindhearted classmate. But it's truly De Palma's bravura storytelling -- right down to the final scene -- that makes Carrie one of the most shocking portraits of teen cruelty ever to come out of Hollywood. Monica McIntyre

All Movie Guide

This classic horror movie based on Stephen King's first novel stars Sissy Spacek as Carrie White, a shy, diffident teenager who is the butt of practical jokes at her small-town high school. Her blind panic at her first menstruation, a result of ignorance and religious guilt drummed into her by her fanatical mother (Piper Laurie), only causes her classmates' vicious cruelty to escalate, despite the attentions of her overly solicitous gym teacher (Betty Buckley). Finally, when the venomous Chris Hargenson (Nancy Allen) engineers a reprehensible prank at the school prom, Carrie lashes out in a horrifying display of her heretofore minor telekinetic powers. Many films had featured school bullies, but Carrie was one of the first to focus on the special brand of cruelty unique to teenage girls. Carrie's world is presented as a snake pit, where the well-to-do female students all have fangs -- even the reticent Sue Snell (Amy Irving) -- and all the males are blind pawns, sexually twisted around the fingers of Chris and her evil cronies. The talented supporting cast includes John Travolta, P.J. Soles, and William Katt. One of the genre's true classics, the film was followed by a sequel in 1999, as well as by a famously unsuccessful Broadway musical adaptation that starred Betty Buckley, the movie's gym teacher, as Margaret White. Robert Firsching

Entertainment Weekly

Though Carrie has been on DVD since 1998, the special edition is worth taking a look at, if only to check out the improvements on an extras roster that was woefully inadequate. It still doesn't offer a director's commentary...but the producer has compensated with not one but two "making of" documentaries. Michael Sauter

Product Details

• UPC: 027616865519
• Source: MGM (VIDEO & DVD)
• Region Code: 1
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby Digital
• Language: English
• Time: 1:38:00
• Sales Rank: 6,782

This DVD is also available as part of a box set:

• Special Edition Horror Giftset
• Stephen King Giftset
• United Artists Super Deluxe Gift Set (90 films)
• Dying to Be Popular Triple Feature

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