From Page to Screen: Bringing Carrie to Life

This chapter examines Carrie's transition from page to screen, which involved numerous changes to the style and tone of Stephen King's novel decided upon for creative and budgetary reasons by Brian De Palma and screenwriter Lawrence D. Cohen. Alterations to the final shooting script (the second draft of the adaptation) were brought about by a combination of time constraints, on set improvisation, and decisions made during post-production editing. Though the studio approved the second draft, a fairly rare occurrence in Hollywood, United Artists would waver on the project in other areas. Even given the horror genre's commercial and critical successes during the period, United Artists were, perhaps understandably, unconvinced that the adaptation of a debut novel by an experienced director still looking for a major commercial success was worth risking any more than the figure allocated. It is telling that the only real problem De Palma had with the project was in relation to those controlling the marketing of the movie. For De Palma, Carrie was a serious movie, with serious points to make about the cruelty of teenagers, the insidious effects of religious fervour, and the state of contemporary American society, regardless of it being wrapped up in supernatural trappings. United Artists, however, marketed Carrie as cheap popcorn entertainment.

Introduction

This introductory chapter provides an overview of Brian De Palma's tenth feature-length film, Carrie (1976), which was adapted for the screen by Lawrence D. Cohen from Stephen King's 1974 debut novel. Produced by Paul Monash and released by United Artists, the film starred Sissy Spacek in the title role alongside Piper Laurie as her mother, Margaret White. Carrie White is a richly complex character that engenders a range of contrasting emotions in the viewer. Much like the conflicted personality of its central character, Carrie is a film with more than one identity and stands out even within the dominant American horror films of the 1970s. The visual romanticism, lyricism, and moments of humour that De Palma used to counteract the movie's more horrifying moments has seen it cited in academic and critical circles as an influence on both the cycle of teen-oriented horror movies and the gross-out teen comedies that emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This book details Carrie's journey from the page to the big screen, a journey that has seen it become a highly important part of its director's oeuvre and a classic of horror cinema.

Birth of a Monster

This chapter discusses the surrounding forces, both individual and collective, which led to the writing and subsequent filming of Carrie (1976), giving a clear picture of its place within the popular culture of the era and offering an insight as to how Brian De Palma and his cast and crew capitalised on numerous factors to bring Carrie to the big screen. As with all movies that attain a lasting resonance and/or reverential status, there is no single defining attribute that led to Carrie's standing as a classic, but rather a convergence of diverse determining factors. Talent, happenstance, timing, and prevailing social, cultural, and political climates and mores are all equally influential elements that affect a movie's reception. In Carrie's case, these factors gestated in the fledgling career of horror novelist Stephen King, De Palma's ambitions (commercial and artistic), the climate of unrest in America in the early 1970s, and the wave of homegrown nihilistic horror movies that both commented on and reflected the country's troubled psyche at the time. Along with the ‘paranoid conspiracy’ thrillers and pointedly political movies of the time, the horror movies released in America in the 1970s were at the forefront of cinematic responses to a sustained period of cultural upheaval, social turbulence, and political disenchantment.