YMMV / Carrie (1976)

• Accidental Aesop: Don't let known troublemakers help out at school events. The switched prom ballots probably could have been avoided if the teachers didn't trust Norma to collect them in the first place. Counts as Genre Blindness in Miss Collins's case - as she knew what a nasty piece of work the girl was.
• Adaptation Displacement: Some of the details of this film are so memorable that other adaptations leave them in when they're not in the book.
  • Carrie's characterization as a whole is softened from book to film, making her a far more tragic character. The book's Carrie was a Villain Protagonist who harbored violent revenge fantasies for years, and whose entire revenge is premeditated. The film's Carrie, by contrast, is a Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold who only wanted to fit in, with her rampage brought on by Sanity Slippage.
  • In the book, Carrie first runs out of the gym between the dumping of the pig blood and her rampage, while in the film, Carrie causes her destruction right there on the stage.
  • Chris having a Beta Bitch who helps her rig the elections. The book has a tie, and Carrie and Tommy win in a run-off. In fact, the Stephen King wiki had a note under Norma's book entry that she "lied to say she wasn't involved in the prank" - mixing up the backstories of movie Norma and book Norma (who barely knew Chris).
  • The principal being Mr. Morton. The principal in the book is Henry Grayle, and Morton is only the vice principal.
  • Carrie's prom dress being pink. The wardrobe department just felt that pink looked nicer on Sissy Spacek, and didn't change Margaret's line "I might have known it would be red" - the dress actually is red in the book. This is probably also kept for the fact that a light colour would look far more striking splashed with blood.
  • Carrie only imagining that everyone is laughing at her. The book contains testimonies from other characters at the prom (Norma is one of the survivors) who say that everyone was laughing, albeit more out of shock than maliciousness.
  • Margaret dying last and Carrie dying in the house. In the book, Margaret is killed before Chris and Billy and Carrie meets Sue at the motel where they have their one and only direct interaction.
  • The idea of Margaret White turning to religious mania as a coping mechanism after her husband Ralph abandoned her and Carrie for another woman originated in the 1976 film adaptation. In the original novel, Margaret was already a religious fanatic when she met Ralph, who died in a construction accident shortly after Carrie was conceived.
  • Having an ending at the graveyard. The book ends with a letter about another little girl with psychic powers, but the graveyard scene is so remembered that most adaptations homage it in some way.
• Adorkable:
  • P. J. Soles portrays Norma as this. She may be The Dragon to Chris' council of high school villainy, but she is so dorky and cute you kind of want to let it slide. Especially after seeing her get her hair done in the salon, and still wearing her trademark hat on top of the dryer.
  • Carrie's shyness and awkwardness come across as more cute than anything, particularly during the Prom, where she really does look beautiful. Even Billy says at one point "That Carrie White, she sure is cute".
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Due to Betty Buckley saying she played Miss Collins as a lesbian, it raises the possibility that she might be attracted to Carrie in some way. To make this slightly less squicky, the book clarifies that she's a young teacher on her first job. Or she might have no romantic interest in Carrie but - if she is a lesbian herself - she may relate to Carrie's sense of isolation and feeling different.
  • When Chris looks shocked at Miss Collins' death, is she actually upset, or is she shocked because she's just realized that Carrie is the one causing the destruction?
  • Chris trying to run down Carrie at the end. It's ambiguous if she was acting out of sheer hatred for Carrie and obsessed with getting the last laugh, or if it's actually the only good thing she does- trying to take out a superpowered mass murderer.
• Audience-Coloring Adaptation: The film made several changes that other adaptations have followed:
  • Carrie's prom dress becomes pink, when it is red in the book — which is why Margaret says "I might have known it would be red."
  • Carrie leaves the gym before causing her destruction, whereas all adaptations have her do it from inside as soon as the blood is poured on her.
  • Chris Hargensen gets her Beta Bitch to rig the ballots so that Tommy and Carrie win. It's a tie in the book and they win in a run-off ballot. Whichever girl is chosen (Tina in the 2002 and 2013 versions, Norma in the 1976 version) is given Adaptational Villainy.
  • Carrie's showdown with Margaret becomes the climax of all the films, whereas Carrie tracks down Chris and Billy afterwards in the book.
  • Only Carrie gets blood poured on her at the prom, as opposed to the book where it happened to both her and Tommy.
  • Carrie’s father died in a construction accident in the book. This film introduced the idea of him betraying Margaret and running off with another woman, something featured in every subsequent adaptation.
• Award Snub: Its only Oscar nominations were Sissy Spacek for Best Actress and Piper Laurie for Best Supporting Actress, but the both lost to performers from Network: Faye Dunaway and Beatrice Straight respectively. No one really thinks Spacek had a chance against Dunaway's strong performance (and Spacek would get eventually get her Oscar for Coal Miner's Daughter), but many people feel Laurie got robbed, with her chilling performance as Margaret White getting subject to Horror Ghetto issues, while the Cinderella win by Straight for a character who only appeared in three scenes of the film is considered one of the most head-scratching Oscar victories of all-time.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: Amy Irving would like to point out that the film opens with a volleyball game in gym class, and not the steamy scene of the girls showering. Of course the Shower Scene is also memorable for morphing into Fan Disservice as Carrie gets her first period.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: While Tommy, George and The Beak are tuxedo shopping, the film suddenly speeds up as if it's on fast forward. It's completely random and comes out of nowhere.
• Broken Base:
  • Dropping Carrie's destruction of the town from the book. On the one hand, it's likely that audiences would have lost sympathy for Carrie had that been shown, and seeing destruction of this place we've never seen before would add Ending Fatigue. On the other, only destroying the school gym negates some of the horror and tragedy.
  • John Travolta as Billy. Some people think he brings much welcome comic relief (which Travolta actually thought he was) and that Chris is suitably evil to make up for him. Others find his dorkiness out of place and too much dissonance between his personality and what he does in the story, especially compared to his character in the original book, who was no laughing matter and was even more evil than Chris. That said, dissonance between one's personality and actions is a common sociopathic trait. He is noticeably more aggressive and abusive during the pig slaughter scene, so Travolta's take on him could simply be a lower-functioning example.
  • Amy Irving has historically been beloved as Sue, but there are a number of detractors who find her too bland or flat in the role. Not helping matters is the majority of Sue's big moments being cut - and the film lacking access to her inner thoughts, making her less complex than she was in the book. While Amy Irving is still compared favorably to her successors (Kandyse McClure and Gabriella Wilde), there are some who feel she was miscast.
  • Betty Buckley as Miss Collins is another divisive casting choice. The character is softened a lot compared to the book, and made much nicer. Some love this - especially the Heartwarming Moments that follow between her and Carrie (the scene where she tells Carrie that she's a pretty girl deep down is considered a highlight). But there are others who feel the character becomes too soft, and thus lacks the same fire that Miss Desjardin of the book has. What's more is that this version outright hits Chris (in the book she was just pushed against a locker) and some feel it's too much even for Chris (who is less outwardly sociopathic at that point).
• Can't Un-Hear It: Piper Laurie is considered to be the definitive Margaret White. Likewise is Sissy Spacek for the titular protagonist. Spacek even narrates the audiobook version of the original novel.
• Cargo Ship: Norma and her red hat. She's never seen without it, even at the prom or at the salon, where it's sitting on top of her hair dryer.
• Catharsis Factor: The catharsis begins when Norma and Kenny try to sneak out of the prom after the prank, but Carrie has sealed the doors. It's incredibly satisfying to see her suddenly brought down a peg, screaming for help. Then she's knocked out with the fire house and left to burn in Carrie's fire.
• Ending Aversion: The film in particular makes Carrie so tragic and sympathetic that it can be very hard to watch everything she goes through, and the fact that after all that she ends up dying alone in despair makes it even more cruel. While the film is well-made many find it too depressing to watch a second time.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Brian De Palma himself found Norma to be one. He was so impressed with PJ Soles's ad-lib of hitting Carrie with her hat that he wrote more scenes for her. She was also cast in the prominent role of Lynda in Halloween (1978) because John Carpenter loved her work as Norma.
  • There's also Cora Wilson, whose name is only given in the credits and has no lines. As noted on the main page, she displays a lot of Character Development for a background character - at first starting off as one of the bullies, getting a close-up during Miss Collins's lecture indicating she feels guilty and then being shown sincerely applauding Carrie at the prom. She's also among the people on the stage trying to revive Tommy and help move his body out of the gym.
• Fight Scene Failure: Billy slaps Chris in the car. You hear a loud sound but it's clear he's barely tapping her; Nancy Allen said that John Travolta was very reluctant to strike her, unlike Betty Buckley who smacked her full force in their scene.
• First Installment Wins: Not only is the movie better known than the original novel and a horror classic in its own right, the later versions have never been able to steal its thunder. This version codified a number of elements that have been present in the two remakes.
• Franchise Original Sin: Casting Sissy Spacek as Carrie was a departure from the source material, taking a character who Stephen King wrote as overweight and unattractive and having her played by somebody who in real life was beautiful enough to have been the homecoming queen of her own high school. That said, Spacek pulled it off, chiefly by playing Carrie as somebody whose unpopularity was due to her lack of social skills and her ultra-religious upbringing rather than her looks. It also helped that she was a fairly unknown actress for whom this was a Star-Making Role, so most viewers were introduced to her as a dowdy teen outcast. The 2013 film, however, cast Chloë Grace Moretz, a former child star making the move to adult roles who audiences already knew was beautiful, and whereas Spacek played Carrie as a wallflower, Moretz's livelier and more assertive performance only put more emphasis on her beauty and made her come across as an Unconvincingly Unpopular Character.
• Glurge: Tommy kissing Carrie at the prom has this coupled with Fridge Logic. He only saw her as a friend and took her as a favour to Sue - y'know his girlfriend. Who he's cheating on by kissing Carrie. Carrie also makes it clear that she knows Tommy doesn't fancy her - and she's just happy to have a good time as friends - so kissing her is going to confuse her.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: In a dark way, Carrie insisting that her father is still alive and just ran off with another woman. In the sequel, she has a sister who knows about her, and ends up following in her footsteps.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The gym teacher is Irish instead of French. It's hilarious that two other Stephen King adaptations would give a Race Lift to Irish characters - Red in The Shawshank Redemption, Curtis in Dreamcatcher. Both played by Morgan Freeman to boot.
  • Two years after this movie, Brian De Palma makes The Fury, with Amy Irving as Gillian, who has Psychic Powers. And Amy was in the running to play Carrie before Sissy Spacek was cast.
  • Norma is dressed exactly like Mario during the scene with Tommy's poem.
  • Billy says "Git 'er done" while killing the pig.
  • Mrs. Snell defending her daughter to Margaret - "my Sue is a good girl" - is oddly prophetic of a lot of viewers mistakenly thinking Sue was in on the prank.
  • Sissy Spacek was the Prom Queen at her actual prom.
  • As in the novel, Billy oddly calls Chris "Chucky" a few times to annoy her. 12 years later another famous horror movie with a villain named Chucky would come out.
  • Magaret insisting Carrie's prom dress is red when it's obviously pink is kind of funny after the infamous picture of "the dress" (a picture of a dress that is actually blue and black, but appears and white and gold or blue and gold to some viewers, although the reason for this is still unknown.)
• Hype Backlash: While considered a classic of the horror genre, younger fans or fans of the book (or indeed the other two adaptations) have started to grow tired of the film being treated like a Sacred Cow.
• It Was His Sled: Even beyond the prom scene, the film's final Jump Scare is so famous that it's now impossible to be caught off guard by it.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: While Carrie is technically a Villain Protagonist, she is a very sympathetic Anti-Villain, and doesn't even do anything villainous until near the end. Meanwhile, the main antagonists are completely loathsome. Her mother is a highly abusive religious nut who hits Carrie repeatedly, throws coffee in her face, punishes her for having a period, and outright tries to murder her at the end. The other antagonist, Chris, is a horrible Alpha Bitch who's really mean to Carrie for no reason, and, when she is banned from the prom for her cruelty, decides to pour blood on her and ruin the happiest moment of her life, which leads to her going insane and killing everyone.
• Les Yay:
  • Miss Collins is one of the few characters to directly display tenderness to Carrie in the movie, defending her, consoling her, and encouraging her to be more open to trying new things. When Betty Buckley said she plays the character as a lesbian, it unavoidably paints at least some undertones of this.
  • Also, Frieda's line to Carrie about how she'd gladly dance with her. And when she presents her with the bouquet as she's crowned queen, she kisses her on the cheek (as does the other girl Cora).
• Love to Hate:
  • Chris Hargensen is one of the most hateful examples of an Alpha Bitch you could find anywhere, but this is part of what makes her fun to hate, particularly when she shares the screen with her Jerkass boyfriend, Billy Nolan.
  • Norma is such a horrible person that she's just so lovable. Especially when she's going to get her hair done for the prom and still has the famous red cap on top of the dryer.
  • Margaret White is made so over the top by Piper Laurie that she's legitimately terrifying and unforgettable as a result.
• Moe: This version of Carrie is probably the most moe-ish of them all, although In-Universe only Miss Collins and Tommy actually hug her.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Carrie crosses it when she murders Miss Collins during her massacre, which horrifies even Chris.
  • If Chris didn’t cross it by in every way being the driving force behind the sick prank at the Prom in this version, she certainly does when she tries to run down Carrie after. This is the only version of Chris who stoops to flat out attempted murder (save the ‘13 film where she eggs on Billy to do it himself).
  • Norma gleefully takes part in the prom prank, swapping the ballots with mock ones to get Carrie onstage, then laughs hysterically at Carrie's humiliation, and when Tommy is hit by the bucket, she only laughs harder. It makes her resulting Death by Adaptation very satisfying.
  • Kenny also qualifies, he doesn't laugh when the prank is pulled, but he loses it after Tommy is hit with the bucket, something even Norma's boyfriend is shocked about.
  • Margaret crosses it when she tries to outright murder Carrie. This comes across as especially heinous since she had no way of knowing about the prom massacre and wanted to kill Carrie just for defying her, and she starts hugging Carrie and acting like a decent human being for once, only to stab her in the back.
• Narm Charm:
  • Although still well made, the ghastly 70s clothes and hairstyles make this film unintentionally hilarious in places. Not enough to ruin some of the scenes however.
  • The crowning sequence by all counts should be horrendously cheesy - with the slow-motion, upbeat music and Carrie crying Tears of Joy like she's won Miss USA or something. But it's just so sweet to see her being accepted by everyone...and it makes it all the more heartbreaking when the blood is poured.
  • Some of Margaret's scenes seem like they should be really corny, such as her psycho rant about boys or the scene where Carrie is asking to go the the prom and a flash of lightning occurs just as Margaret says "prom?", as if the sky itself is afraid of her. They manage to actually work due to Piper Laurie's show-stopping performance.
• Older Than They Think: The Jump Scare at the end was likely inspired by the Twilight Zone episode "The Grave."
• One-Scene Wonder: Priscilla Pointer appears in three scenes, but has only one big dialogue scene, and is incredibly memorable. She doesn't do anything spectacular, but she turns in a fun performance that makes you forget her screen time is so small.
• Once Original, Now Common: The ending was shocking at the time, being the first horror film to actually have a shock ending. But it's been ripped off so many times that it doesn't look like as much as it was back then.
• Questionable Casting: Casting Edie McClurg as a high school student. She's also one of the Girl Posse, which doesn't seem to make much sense.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • "Introducing John Travolta, in his first motion picture role." At the time, Travolta was best known as a Teen Idol from Welcome Back, Kotter, his Star-Making Role in Saturday Night Fever still being a year away.
  • Tommy's actor William Katt would went on to play The Greatest American Hero.
  • PJ Soles would play Lynda in Halloween (1978) and was actually cast in that because John Carpenter loved her work as Norma.
  • Betty Buckley later joined the cast of Eight is Enough. To Broadway fans, she'd originate the role of Grizabella in Cats (for which she won a Tony).
• Rooting for the Empire: Quite a few viewers find the prom massacre completely justified, considering how horribly almost everyone treated Carrie. It doesn't hurt that, with a few exceptions, we only actually see her kill the mean kids, as well as a Sadist Teacher. Everyone else (who might actually be decent people) doesn't actually die on screen, meaning they could have made it out, or perhaps Carrie spared them on purpose.
• Signature Scene: The "Pig's Blood" scene, specifically the shot of Carrie covered in pig's blood with her eyes bugging out.
  • And that's not to mention the infamous Black Prom massacre.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • Carrie is barely splashed with blood at the prom, but in the next shot she's covered in it. You could hand wave it by saying she may have rubbed it over herself as Tommy fell around her.
  • When Carrie causes Chris and Billy's car to explode and do a series of flips, we get a glimpse of them during the inside of the vehicle where the film is merely spun around, resulting in black borders being visible the entire time.
  • When Margaret White is stabbed to death by Carrie via the various kitchen utensils, the fatal blow that stabs her in the heart is attached to an obvious wire.
  • The ending where Sue visits Carrie's grave, there is a car in the background mysteriously driving backwards. This was because the entire sequence was shot in reverse.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Dropping the destruction of the town is one that's hotly debated by fans (see Broken Base above), feeling it results in an Anti-Climax.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Inverted. Piper Laurie thought the movie was a dark comedy (and believed so for the rest of her life), insisting that anyone who would write "dirty pillows" into the dialog had to be joking.
• Unintentional Period Piece: With its epic '70s Hair, teen heartthrob John Travolta, the opening scene being utterly awash in naked flesh, and a soundtrack by Pino Donaggio that combines "Psycho" Strings with funkadelic '70s cues. The prom is given a disco theme, with ruffles on most of the characters. And that's not even getting into its portrayal of teen bullying.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: According to Brian De Palma, even the people who weren't in on the prank had still been complicit in bullying Carrie for years, which is why she imagines them all laughing at her. However, this isn't fully shown, and at least two of the promgoers seemed to be nice to Carrie, so some viewers found them undeserving of their fates.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Miss Collins is meant to be a Reasonable Authority Figure, but her motives come off as ambiguous to a number of viewers, and her tendency to slap students doesn't help matters. It also doesn't help that one of her first scenes has her saying that even she wanted to shake Carrie for freaking out over her period. She also ends up unwittingly triggering the prom disaster by refusing to listen to Sue when she's trying to stop the prank.
  • While certainly not an awful person, Tommy could definitely be a bit less sympathetic to some viewers than he's made out to be. He kisses Carrie during the prom scene, which is pretty skeevy of him, considering he has a girlfriend and Carrie is going to get confused by the whole situation because of that, though he may have genuinely been falling for Carrie at that moment. And then when Sue is being thrown out of the prom, he doesn't even seem to wonder what she's doing there, if she's alright or that if she were causing trouble, she might have a good reason. He also saw no problem with kissing Carrie on the stage in front of the whole school, which is even more thoughtless towards Sue's potential hurt. In the original script, he was even worse, claiming Carrie was "asking for it" when the shower incident happened (the book version by contrast is shocked that Sue would do such a thing) and passing Sue's writing off as his own work in class. He does at least redeem himself by looking outraged when the blood is poured.
• Values Dissonance:
  • This is the only adaptation to have Chris getting smacked by the gym teacher. These days a teacher hitting a student would be fired instantly, regardless of how rotten the student is^note In the book Miss Desjardin slams her against the locker, which is why she gets away with it.. Similarly, Billy slapping her is played more for laughs than it would be today. Nancy Allen even said she feels uncomfortable watching those scenes for this reason.
  • Tommy's kissing Carrie makes him look less sympathetic these days, since he is essentially cheating on his girlfriend. The scene where Sue is thrown out of the prom looks like she was trying to cause trouble after seeing them kissing, and Tommy just laughs and shakes his head - as if Sue wouldn't have good reason to be annoyed at the kiss. Naturally, the next two adaptations would show that Tommy just sees Carrie as a friend.
  • When Sue tells Miss Collins she's serious about having Tommy take Carrie to the Prom, Collins points out that going stag to the Prom isn't allowed, which seems pretty odd by modern standards. Both of the remakes omit this part and just have Sue decide not to go to the Prom at all even by herself.
  • The entire opening scene showing underage girls fully nude and showering, then mostly for Fanservice, would be less acceptable to a modern audience being more wary of the sexualization of minors.
• Values Resonance: The message of the movie seems relevant now that bullying is seen as a serious problem.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: All the effects in the prom scene are quite impressive and hold up very well today. Before the shit hits the fan, the prom has some almost prismatic lighting that gives the whole thing a magical and otherworldly feel that none of the remakes have quite captured.
• WTH, Costuming Department?:
  • Even by 70s standards, Tommy Ross's big afro results in Narm for a lot of his scenes.
  • The garish tuxedos Tommy and George wear to the prom - which even get set up in their own shopping montage. Although they do have a Narm Charm to them.
  • Edie McClurg has big, goofy glasses that make her look like a female Chuckie Finster, which makes her stick out like a sore thumb amongst the otherwise average looking to beautiful popular girls.
• The Woobie:
  • Carrie White. She is harassed mercilessly throughout the movie and has been abused by her religious mother throughout her entire life. While she did cause the massacre at the prom, she snapped from her humiliation to the point that she thought everyone was laughing at her. And then her own mother attempts to kill her. Look at her cringing in the corner trying not to look at her mother, don't you just want to give her a hug?
  • Sue has become one by the end, where she was physically in the same building as her boyfriend and friends burn to death - knowing that it was partly her fault for a) getting Tommy to ask Carrie to the prom and b) not doing a better job explaining the situation to Miss Collins when she saw the blood about to be poured. She still has dreams about Carrie haunting her, even though she feels sympathy for what she went through. The very last shot is of her screaming in anguish as her mother tries to comfort her. The Rage: Carrie 2 reveals that she spent some time in a mental facility and although she's recovered, she's still haunted by the incident twenty years later.
  • Tommy Ross is probably the nicest person in the whole movie. He takes Carrie to the prom at Sue's behest, and tries to make Carrie's prom experience as wonderful as possible. He ends up getting hit on the head by the bucket of pig's blood, and even if he was only knocked out, he definitely perished in the fire afterward.
  • Miss Collins is perhaps the only nice teacher in the movie, with the possible exception of the Principal. She treats Carrie as if she was her own daughter, tries to cheer her up when she's upset, convinces Carrie to go to the prom despite her fears, and tells Carrie a very sweet story about her own experience at her prom. after Carrie gets covered in blood, she thinks Collins is laughing at her (which Betty Buckley herself said is just a hallucination), and gets mad enough to kill her with a falling basketball hoop holder.

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