Carrie
1976 · 98 min
Directed by Brian De Palma. Written by Lawrence D. Cohen, Stephen King. Starring Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, William Katt.
Withdrawn and sensitive teenager Carrie White faces bullying from her classmates and abuse from her fanatically pious mother. When she begins to suspect that she has supernatural powers, things take a dark and violent turn.
Critics 82% · audiences 77% · streaming on Prime Video, HBO Max · $34 million in the US and Canada on its first run · $57,000 elsewhere · about 16 million tickets sold, 7.3% of the country · 2 Oscar nominations
What they said about Carrie
- 1976
strong production, unusual plot twists and a fine cast.
— Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
How it got made
Carrie was the first Stephen King novel to be published and the first to be adapted into a feature film. During an interview in 2010, King said he was 26 years old at the time and was paid just $2,500 for the film rights, but added that he was fortunate to have this happen to his first book. Brian De Palma told Cinefantastique in an interview in 1977:
Lawrence D. Cohen was hired as the screenwriter, and produced the first draft, which had closely followed the novel's intentions. United Artists accepted the second draft but allocated De Palma a budget of only $1.6 million, a small amount considering the popularity of horror films at the time. The budget eventually rose to $1.8 million. Certain scripted scenes were omitted from the final version, mainly due to financial limitations.
Many young actresses auditioned for the lead role, including Melanie Griffith. Sissy Spacek was persuaded by husband Jack Fisk to audition for the title role of Carrie White. Fisk then convinced De Palma to let her audition, and she read for all of the parts. De Palma's first choice for the role of Carrie was Betsy Slade, who received good notices for her role in the film Our Time (1974). Determined to land the leading role, Spacek backed out of a television commercial she was scheduled to film, rubbed Vaseline into her hair, left her face unwashed, and arrived for her screen test clad in a sailor dress which her mother had made her in the seventh grade, with the hem cut off, and was given the part. Nancy Allen was the last to audition, and her audition came just as she was on the verge of leaving Hollywood. She and De Palma married in 1979 and divorced in 1984.
At the box office
Carrie was a box office success earning $14.5 million in theatrical rentals in the United States and Canada by January 1978 from a gross of $33.8 million. In its first 19 days from 60 markets, the film had grossed $3,882,827. Overseas, the film earned rentals of $7 million for a worldwide total of $22 million.