INTRODUCTION and CARRIE (1976)

 

 

Hello and welcome to a whole year of watching Stephen King films. The rules are:

Try and watch every single film and mini-series (up to 8 episodes) adapted from a Stephen King work or any derivative work. Any TV creation that has had more than one series is exempt (so no watching Mr Mercedes or The Dome). You have to feel sorry for me as I'm going to have to watch every single Children of the Corn film. Documentaries about King (and/or his works) are allowed. Episodes written by him for other series (X-Files, etc) are also allowed. You have to feel sorry for me as I'm also going to have to watch the film he directed, Maximum Overdrive.

If you think that the work I'm doing is good you can tip me on Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/johnnymains - some of the money raised through this will be used to commission a special Stephen King artwork. This will be put into a prize draw and given to one of my sponsors.

The length and quality of posts will vary. There will be the odd typo.

Let's start the New Year off at the very beginning - Carrie.

Carrie was the first ever Stephen King novel I wanted to read. It belonged to Jonathan Foggin, and I remember him sitting in the hang out area in Earlston High School, sitting next to the bin. He had the New English Library paperback edition with the painting of Sissy Spacek as Carrie with rivulets of blood pouring down her face. I asked to borrow it from him, but he told me to fuck off and lent it to someone else. It was a few more years before I read it. Pet Sematary was my first novel of King's that I read, and of course, it changed everything.

I don't remember watching Carrie on VHS so my first time would have been on the telly, probably Alex Cox's Moviedrome, around 1993/1994?

I still remember being shocked at so many nude teenagers on the screen, and felt angry at the way that Carrie was being treated by her peers. I instantly connected with the film, because I was horrendously bullied at High School, and I would have just escaped its clutches around the time I watched it. Brian De Palma was such an exciting film maker, and an incredible director whose sense of the baroque - (illustrating supernatural over natural) and perverse comes through strongly. Piper Laurie blows everyone out of the water with her damaged and unhinged portrayal of Margaret White (and I know everyone hates origin stories these days, but I genuinely think that Margaret White before the birth of Carrie would be a wonderful character study to watch). Sissy Spacek gives us a pitch-perfect Carrie, she plays her with the right amount of pathetic and vulnerability. De Palma gives us a glimpse of guignol virtuosity, we're left with a weirdly benign horror film that certainly showed the promise of all the cash a King juggernaut could bring, but only really half delivers on what was an exceptional debut novel.

I really enjoyed watching it again - and would like to watch it with some friends next time, it's a sad and lonely film to watch on your tod -  however the two Carrie remakes and Carrie 2 and Riverdale: A Night to Remember, I'm not looking forward to those in the slightest, they'll all be first time watches for me.

 

Thanks to Andrew Screen who provided many of the Stephen King films and TV stuff I will be watching.

1/1/22