Carrie (2013) Analysis & Recap: Devil in a Pink Dress

Could you imagine getting superpowers right as you're going through puberty and how jarring that must be? What if you wake up one morning like, whoa, why are my draws all stiff and crusty? Then you hear your pet goldfish in the corner of your room pipe up with, well, pal, it's called a nocturnal emission. Your body is going through some changes. But also, let's talk about that sushi you and your bitch ass family ate the other night. I'm Brandon O. This is Terrorific, and we're chopping up 2013's totally unnecessary remake, Carrie.

Welcome back to the place where it's perpetually spooky season. This episode is brought to you by DFW Landscaping Services, your local experts for complete outdoor solutions in the Dallas -Fort Worth Metroplex. From routine mowing to full front and backyard transformations, they keep your curb appeal sharp and your weekends free. Their team specializes in custom hardscapes, vibrant flower and tree beds, and total lawn care tailored to the North Texas climate. They believe in being built for Texas and designed for living.

Reach out to Matt and Cody today for a free quote at 469 -389 -0333 or visit them online at landscaping services, dfw .com. Once again, that's 469 -389 -0333. Let's build something great together. So yeah, the show has a sponsor now, you know, just doing my part to support the local economy. But if this is your first time listening, this season is all about breaking down horror film adaptations of the works of the horror goat himself, Stephen King. So be sure you're following at Terrific Podcast on IG because leading up to each new episode, I post a response box on my story for you to guess what movie that episode will cover.

And if you guess correctly, I'll shout you out in that episode. Now, this week's hint was a little bit different. I went with a visual clue and it was a stack of pads accompanied by some tampons and I guess this clue was a little bit too easy because my shout out list is the longest it's ever been. Only one person got the 1408 clue so I guess I overcompensated a little bit this time because now we have like 10 so I was planning to plug everyone's most recent or upcoming projects but there's just too many.

I'll be reading shit off for like 10 minutes. So instead, what I've done is drop all that info into the episode description. So be sure to check through that, read through that. There'll be links in there as well. So you can listen to those episodes from these creators and yeah, but make sure you finish this episode first. Okay. Don't be rude. But shout out to these podcasts and YouTube channels whose hosts slash creators correctly connected the menstrual dots to Carrie. So we got you Goodka, Skipper Scream, Grimly, It Came From The Maritimes, Macabre Mondays, Horror Flick Chicks, The Bitter Wolf, and the podcast about nothing.

Now, if you're a regular listener, some of these names will sound familiar to you as I have collaborated with them in the past, or they have. guessed correctly in the past so yeah check them out and there were two other people one of whom guessed correctly that the film was carrie but didn't want to shout out so to that person if you're listening congrats and i respect your anonymity and for the second person they also guessed carrie but then gaslit themselves into thinking it couldn't possibly be that easy of a clue So they subsequently switched their guest to The Shining.

Congratulations, you played yourself. And some folks may call that karma. Karma for sitting your pee pants on your nephew's midsection. But I digress. Let's get to the reason. Let's get to the reason you're really here. And let's dissect Carrie. But quick side note, if this is your first time listening to Terrific, then you have no idea what I'm referring to with that pee pants comment. And you're probably wondering to yourself, why the fuck did you click on this episode and decide to listen to this bullshit?

This R. Kelly motherfucker out here talking about peeing on people. And that would be a totally valid and understandable line of thought. All I can say in my defense is that I just respond to the situations that I am presented with. So take from that what you will. But OK, so the film Carrie was adapted from Stephen King's 1974 debut novel of the same name, and it is a remake of the 1976 classic. King wrote Carrie originally intending to submit it as a short story for the men's magazine Cavalier, but he gave up on it due to a feeling that it would never be successful.

However, his wife Tabitha fished the first three pages of the story from the trash and told him to keep at it. And of course, the rest is now history. The film was directed by Kimberly Pierce, who is best known for directing 1999's Boys Don't Cry, which saw Hilary Swank win an Oscar for Best Actress. The screenplay was written by Roberto Aguirre -Sacasa, whose horror credits include 2014's The Town That Dreaded Sundown, and Lawrence D. Cohen, who also wrote the screenplays for a few other adaptations of Stephen King's works, including the original Carrie in 1976, 1990s It miniseries as well as 1993s The Tommyknockers miniseries.

Carrie stars Chloe Grace Moretz in the titular role, Julianne Moore as her mother Margaret White, Judy Greer as Miss Desjardins, Gabriella Wilde as Sue Snell, Portia Doubleday as Chris Hargensen, and Ansel Elgort as Tommy Ross. Carrie grossed about $85 million worldwide against a budget of $30 million. And the film holds an average rating of 2 .6 on Letterboxd. I rated it a 2 myself because some of the effects didn't age the best and I thought there were some really cringy moments when it came to the acting.

The film opens with an exterior shot of a quaint little home in the suburbs but there is a woman who is screaming in what appears to be intense agony. And as we move through the house, we see crucifixes on the walls. There's an open Bible laying face down on the stairs and there's like water or pools of some kind of liquid and also blood. And eventually we see this woman and she's in bed praying and screaming until suddenly she falls eerily silent and just kind of like stares up at the ceiling. And then she hikes up her nightgown and reveals that she has just given birth to a baby.

And her first words are, it's a test. Cut it down. Yikes. So she grabs a pair of big ass scissors from her nightstand. And honestly, I can't think of any reason anyone would have to keep a giant pair of scissors next to their bed. Um, but I guess, you know, better to be prepared. You know, one day you may need to stab your newborn, I guess. So she is about to do just that. But stops at the last second as the baby makes eye contact with her. Which is crazy because newborns can't really see anything beyond like a foot in front of them.

And they're also like hella sensitive to light. But yay for maternal love, I guess. And like I know that in movies, depictions of births, they don't actually use newborns. ever if at all you know the babies are like six months old or some shit and that's fine but they at least usually try to add a little bit more realism to the situation like this baby here didn't even have an umbilical cord so it just came out as a full -on six month old and they rolled with it very interesting But of course, this scene is the birth of Carrie and the woman who is giving birth is her mother, Margaret.

And even though the scene is relatively short, in that amount of time, it does a good job of establishing the fact that Margaret is batshit crazy. She is a religious fanatic who is apparently a -okay with the idea of committing infanticide. But that little baby does manage to grow up. And next we see her. She is in PE class at school as like a junior or senior in high school. And her class is playing pool volleyball. And Carrie seems very shy. She's lacking confidence in herself. And she's kind of standing in the corner of the pool awkwardly as fuck.

And as the other students play. The ball ends up landing near Carrie, which leads the coach, Coach Desjardins, or Miss Desjardins, to tell her to get into the game and that she can't stand on the sidelines forever, which sounds like a double entendre to me. Carrie cannot stand on the sidelines of this game, nor the sidelines of life. Wow, Miss Desjardins out here just dropping bars on cat's heads, bro. Why are you a PE teacher then? You need to be like a guidance counselor or some shit. But anyway, Carrie picks up the ball and immediately serves it into the back of popular girl Sue's head.

And her fellow popular girl BFF Chris starts cracking up, leading all the other girls to begin laughing too. So this scene establishes Chris and Sue as the queen bees of the school. And after they're done with P .E., they all head to the locker room and shower. But Carrie waits until everyone else is finished before hopping in there herself. And as she is washing up, she notices that her hand is bloody and begins to freak out. She runs to the other girls in the locker room screaming for help because she legitimately believes that she is bleeding to death and is in danger.

And she grabs on to Sue who's like, what the fuck? Get away, you weirdo. And like leaves a bloody handprint on her white shirt. And so Kristen points that out and is like, yo, that's period blood. And she tosses a tampon at Carrie telling her to plug it up. Then the other girls join in. So now it's raining tampons and pads on Carrie while this plug it up chant rings out. And she is lying on the shower floor, which is disgusting. I can't imagine lying down in a pool of like toe jams, fucking pubes and apparently period blood.

Carrie is absolutely in shambles because she has no idea what the fuck is going on and Chris has her cell phone now and she's recording all of this while Sue looks on not participating anymore but now she has this look on her face that shows that she feels badly feels guilty but most importantly she does nothing to stop the other girls from being assholes. Eventually, Miss Desjardins shows up to defuse the situation, but she seems kind of annoyed. She is thinking that Carrie is being like hella extra.

And Sue comes up to tell her that she doesn't think Carrie knows what a period is. And Miss Desjardins is just like, hey, you know, shut up. You're not really helping. Back away. And Carrie starts getting more and more wound up and the pads and the ponds around her start to move a little bit. And the overhead light kind of flickers. And Miss Desjardins slaps Carrie to get her to stop freaking out. Like, what the fuck? Like, how is that your reaction? Like, this girl legitimately thinks that she's dying.

And the way to get her to calm down is to slap her? But hey, you can't argue with results because Carrie immediately quiets down. So Miss Desjardins takes her to the principal's office. Principal Morton. And she apologizes for slapping Carrie and says she should have handled the situation better. Yeah, no shit. But Principal Morton is one of those guys who doesn't like to talk about yucky feminine things like periods. Ew, gross. So he offers Carrie some juice. Some juice as a period remedy. and wants to know who started throwing the uh things because he can't say tampons and pads because menstrual products are so gross and yucky morton says they'll need to contact carrie's mom referencing the contentious relationship they've had in the past because apparently the state had to force her to stop homeschooling carrie And Carrie starts stressing at the thought of her mother getting involved.

Because remember, she is batshit crazy. And then as she's freaking out, the water cooler next to her ruptures. And maybe that's underselling it because it kind of explodes. And if I were in that room, personally, I don't think I would have reacted as calmly, relatively speaking, as Morton and Miss Desjardins did. Like, if I'm seeing something that spontaneously combusts next to me, I'm going to have a few questions. But they're just like, all right, well, Carrie, go on home with your mom. Bye. So Margaret comes and picks Carrie up and they're driving home.

And on that drive, Carrie is asking questions like, hey, why did you never tell me what a period is? Despite the fact that I'm a senior in high school. and her mom is like well we'll just talk about it inside and she heads into the house but carrie stays in the car and some neighbor kid pulls up on his bike and starts like knocking on the window and he's teasing slash bullying her calling her crazy carrie crazy carrie crazy carrie and she looks at him and kind of flicks her head and this little dude flies off his bike and bro is freaked out probably soiled his pants and he pedals off fast as hell carrie then heads into the house and finds her mom banking her head against the wall begging jesus to help her lost child this is crazy margaret says that periods stem from the curse god put upon eve after she smashed adam so carrie must have had impure thoughts when she showered with the other girls at school this is the only logical explanation for getting a period she wanted to go muff diving apparently so carrie's like nah bro everyone has to shower at school as part of the rules blah blah blah And Margaret goes on and on about sinning.

And Carrie is like, nah, you're the one who sinned because you didn't tell me about basic female biology. And as a result, everyone laughed and threw shit at me. Margaret then tells Carrie to get her ass inside of that creepy little prayer closet they have underneath the stairs. And after smacking her in the head with the Bible, she bolts the door shut. And Carrie is like pounding on the door, yelling to be let out. And then suddenly a crack appears in the door. And it's at this point that Carrie accepts that she has some kind of power.

She is telekinetic. She can move things with her mind. So right now, things appear to be tied to her emotions. Because the only times we've seen her exhibit these powers are when she was in the shower freaking out with the blood. She was moving the pads and shit on the ground. And then the thought of her mother coming to school and finding out about the period made her rupture the water cooler. And now being locked in this creepy ass prayer closet, she was able to crack the door with some telekinetic bolt.

But the real question here is, did anyone actually ever... tell or show Carrie how to use a tampon or pad. I guess the audience is supposed to assume that Miss Desjardins did, but I don't know. She's going around here slapping children, so I'm not sure I trust her to follow through with actually addressing the root cause of the issue. But while Carrie is busy banging on the prayer closet door, Sue and Tommy are busy banging in the back of his Jeep. And apparently Tommy is not laying that wood the way he needs to be laying it because Sue is just staring off into space, clearly distracted about the day's events.

And she apparently really does feel badly about what happened earlier and regrets participating in the tampon tossing. So Tommy suggests that she apologize to Carrie in order to clear her conscience. And she kind of brushes him off but seems like maybe she's considering it. Chris then uploads the video of the incident to YouTube like a total dickhead. And crack some jokes about Carrie's favorite movie being Bloodsport and her favorite drink being a Bloody Mary. What a fucking dick. That's kind of funny though.

But now we're starting to see this divide form between Chris and Sue. Chris is leaning into this whole mean girl shit while Sue is like, hey, maybe it's time to grow up a little bit and stop being an asshole. The following day, Miss Desjardins gives Carrie the rest of the week off from PE and she gives the rest of the class detention and has them all outside at the track. She's talking about how excited they must be for graduation and for prom coming up so soon. But she says that what they did to Carrie yesterday was super shitty.

And Chris says that this whole lecture is some old bullshit. So Miss Desjardins says bet. Now everyone needs to start running and if anyone refuses to participate or stops running, they'll be suspended which also means they'll be unable to attend prom. Coach tells them that while they're running to think long and hard about what it would be like to be Carrie in that situation and it looks like the remorse and the regret is really starting to weigh on Sue. Chris participates for a little while but eventually she gets tired and she gets an attitude and she's like fuck you coach I'm not doing this shit anymore and Miss Desjardins suspends her and Chris tries to rally everyone to protest with her but nobody goes for it not even her BFF Sue and she just stands there looking pretty awkward with that egg on her face that's what you get you fucking asshole.

And as Carrie makes her return to school, she's walking through the halls and everyone is whispering and laughing at her. And someone even painted Carrie White eats shit on the lockers, which honestly just seems like really poorly executed bullying. Like, I don't condone bullying, but if you are going to do something, then you should do it well. And saying Carrie White eats shit is just boring. lazy and has no relation to the context of what you're bullying her about if the issue was that she was bleeding on herself then why would you not incorporate that into your insults something like carrie white is a mosquito hoe or carrie white sucks ticks dicks or if you want to keep it simple call her carrie red call her bloody carrie anything besides carrie white eat shit that is just lazy and you don't deserve to be a bully if you're not going to fully commit but again again i do not condone bullying no one should commit to bullying but but don't half -ass it if you do participate but this ridicule causes carrie to retreat into the bathroom to collect herself and she ends up breaking a mirror with her powers and some of the shards fell into the sink So Carrie demonstrates some control.

She like levitates them a little bit before somebody comes in and she has to, you know, exit. And from there, she heads to the library to do some research on telekinesis. She checks out a bunch of books, read some articles online, etc. Later, she's in English class and the teacher calls her up to the front of the room to read a poem for everyone. And she reads some dark shit. But the teacher is a douchebag who makes some douchebag comments saying, wow, that's dark and weird and you're making everyone uncomfortable.

And Tommy, who's also in the class, calls him an asshole. And the teacher's like, what'd you say? And Tommy's like, what I said was what Carrie read was awesome. And Sue is also in this class and she looks like she's feeling some kind of way about Carrie getting attention from her man. Not only is the relationship between Sue and Carrie tense, but it's also tense between their mothers. Margaret is a tailor and or seamstress. And as she's working at the shop, Sue's mom pulls up to pick up Sue's prom dress.

And in the process, she gives this awkward apology to Margaret about the whole period fiasco and says there's no excuse for what Sue did, but also adds that Sue is a good girl. And Margaret asks, are any of those girls good? Which Sue's mom has like an uncomfortable, awkward look on her face. And it's like, okay, time for me to get out of here. But Sue's mom compliments the work that Margaret's done. She has like sewn some new neckline or some shit on this dress. And while Sue was giving her these compliments, Margaret reaches subtly underneath her skirt or dress and begins to cut herself.

And she did something similar when she was locking Carrie in the prayer closet. She was like taking her fingernails and like digging into her arms. It seems like Margaret's mind automatically associates any stressful situation involving Carrie with pain. And if the pain isn't there naturally, then she has to manufacture it. The only natural pain was the childbirth. Since then, everything has been manufactured. Whether that's banging her head against the wall, digging into her arm with her nails, or cutting her leg with this seamstress tool or knife, whatever it was.

Margaret does not look at Carrie like a human being. She looks at her as if she's something she has to atone for. She is the living embodiment of what she considers to be her sin. Chris brings her attorney dad up to the school to meet with Principal Morton and Miss Desjardins, and he tries swinging his lawyer dick around to get Chris's prom privileges restored, says that everything has been based on hearsay, and lacks any sort of evidence. Miss Desjardins says, OK, bet I'll apologize and lift the suspension if there is no evidence like you say.

So let's take a look at Chris's phone and see that there's no video of the incident on there. And her dad just looks at Chris like, hey, show your phone. And Chris looks back at him like, no, I'm not going to do that. And then she folds and just runs out like a straight pussy. With her suspension now upheld. Chris needs to punch down on somebody. So she runs to the gym where Sue and the rest of their clique are setting up decorations for prom. And she confronts Sue for not standing by her. And Sue was like, hey, we kind of deserved it, bro.

Carrie did absolutely nothing to us. But Chris calls out this hypocrisy. She says that Sue does not give a fuck about Carrie. What she really cares about is having the perfect prom night that she's been dreaming of for so long. And if we're keeping it a buck, Chris was not wrong in the slightest. Later on, Carrie's back at home and she's in her room practicing her telekinesis. And the faces she's making were absolutely ridiculous. Like, I couldn't tell. If she was trying not to sneeze or like quietly creaming her panties, maybe a mix of both.

But she makes a bunch of books and her bed levitate. She also makes the lights in the house start to flicker, which draws Margaret's attention from downstairs. So Margaret grabs a knife and heads up to investigate. But Carrie puts everything down and pretends to be asleep right before her mom enters. So Margaret tucks her in and sweetly whispers that she won't let anyone hurt Carrie. And I guess she is excluding herself from this anyone because, like I said, she was carrying a big ass knife. The next day, the worst decision in this entire film takes place when Sue shows up to Tommy's lacrosse practice with the bright idea.

That he should be the one to take Carrie to prom instead of her. Because this will be her way of atoning for what she did. And dog, this has absolutely nothing to do with Carrie whatsoever. Sue is only thinking about herself. She only wants to ease her own conscience. Only wants to ease her own guilt. And she is a narcissist. Not only that, she is the worst kind of narcissist because she has somehow managed to turn herself into the victim. And most notably, she still hasn't even apologized to Carrie, which was the first suggestion that Tommy said.

A very simple, I'm sorry, could have prevented everything that is to come. But the second worst decision that takes place is that Tommy agrees to this bullshit ass idea. And so he pulls up to Carrie sitting alone in the cafeteria and strikes up a conversation. He sees that she's reading a book about telekinesis and he asks, is that like hypnosis? And mentions that he hypnotized his friend's dog once. Bro, okay, so Tommy clearly is not the sharpest crayon in the box. He ends up asking Carrie to prom and she understandably thinks that he's trolling her.

So she runs off and he chases her down in the hallway to say that he's sincerely asking her. And she's like bro aren't you with Sue though? And he's like yeah but Sue doesn't want to go. So hey Carrie do you want to be my backup prom date? This dude is a true romantic. But Carrie still isn't convinced, so she retreats to the girls' locker room and is sitting on a bench in there crying when Miss Desjardins comes in to check on her. And Carrie explains what happened and that she knows who Tommy hangs with, so they're probably just planning to trick her.

But Miss Desjardins gasses her up like, nah, you're pretty, so of course he meant it. that's just reckless behavior as the adult in the room like we gotta keep it real here bro like i understand not wanting to like crush carrie's spirit or whatever but she's already feeling that this isn't like a legitimate invitation so confirming that i don't think is the wrong thing to do you're instead giving her hope knowing that things are probably going to go awry But instead of being honest with Carrie, Miss Desjardins instead goes into the hallway to confront Sue and Tommy saying they need to stop fucking with Carrie.

And they're like, hey, we're not. But also, this is none of your business. And Tommy says famous athletes like Tim Tebow take kids to prom all the time and get love for it. So why not me? And Miss Desjardins is like, are you fucking serious, bro? You play high school lacrosse. Like, shut the fuck up. But she asked Tommy that if he shows up to prom with Carrie on his arm, doesn't he think he'll look the tiniest bit ridiculous? That's rude as fuck. She really is not much better than any of these other assholes.

But Tommy shows up to Carrie's house to apply pressure and eventually she folds. She agrees to go to prom with him. Now she's all excited and hopeful and she goes dress shopping. But while she's out there, she ends up buying claw to make the dress herself. And she doesn't notice that Chris is lurking and watching everything that she's doing. But because she was out shopping for prom materials, Carrie ends up coming home late and Margaret's all worried slash upset. And she's like, where were you?

Blah, blah, blah. And Carrie is like, hey, sorry, I'm late, but I was out because a boy asked me to prom. And Margaret's like, fuck all that. Like, he's just going to hurt you. Boys always come sniffing around after the blood comes. Ew. And this confrontation escalates as Margaret tries to get Carrie to go back to the creepy prayer closet. But she's like, nah, not today, bitch. And she flexes her powers and makes all the living room furniture levitate for a bit. And Margaret drops to her knees, praying as Carrie tells her to stand.

But she won't. So Carrie uses her powers to make her levitate, too. And Margaret calls her a witch who's in the devil's grasp. But Carrie's like, nah, this shit is hereditary. Pretty sure I got it from grandma and it just skipped you. Damn, son, shots fired. Can't nobody tell Carrie shit right now. She is really feeling herself. She finally got her first period. So she's feeling like a woman. She's going to prom with the most popular boy in school and she got these badass telekinetic powers that make her feel like she can do anything.

But of course, first comes the rise and then comes the fall. So Chris, her boyfriend Billy, and his degenerate friends pull up to a farm in the dead of night with a sledgehammer and a bucket. They find a pen of pigs and they single one out and kill it. Chris then takes a knife and slits the pig's throat to drain its blood into the bucket. Then they break into the school and rig this bucket of pig's blood above the prom kink and queen stage in the gym. But of course you can't have a movie. with the prom and not have a getting ready for prom montage so all the kids are getting dressed and they're dancing having fun carrie is making her own dress and looks all happy and she puts it on gets all dolled up when margaret comes into her room And she's complaining about everything.

She says the dress is too revealing, that Carrie's quote unquote dirty pillows are exposed. And Carrie's like, Mom, these are called breasts. Every woman has them, even you. And Margaret's like, nah, look, Tommy has bad intentions. He's not even going to show up and everyone's going to laugh at you. And as crazy as Margaret is, I mean, she got one of those right. But Tommy does indeed show up. In fact, he shows up in style. He shows up in this white stretched limo and Margaret tries to stop Carrie from leaving.

But Carrie uses her powers to force her mom's mouth shut and sends her flying into the prayer closet that she then locks. She even apparently has like some pyrokinesis abilities because she melts the lock a little bit with her mind. And so now Margaret cannot escape. And this may be the biggest unnecessary flex in the entire film because as Margaret bangs on the closet door, Carrie turns on the radio so that Tommy can't hear all that ruckus as he walks up to the front door. But Carrie is standing like two feet away from the radio and she uses her powers to turn it on.

Like she literally could just reach out. Wouldn't even need to take a step and turn it on. But no, she just has to show out. And also the stretch limo for two people is probably the second most unnecessary flex in this movie. Carrie and Tommy pull up to prom and they meet up with his best friend George and George's girlfriend Erica. And these are notably the first people in the film who both aren't mean to Carrie. But also they don't look at her with this overwhelming look of pity. They just treat her like a regular teenage girl.

But as everyone is dancing and having the time of their teenage lives. Chris and Billy sneak into prom and they climb up to where they rigged the bucket as everyone votes for prom king and queen. Chris shoots a text to Sue who's sitting at home saying that Carrie looks good, but she won't for long. Real menacing, real ominous. So Sue jumps up, runs to her car and drives over to school. Turns out that Chris has rigged the ballot box so that Tommy and Carrie. end up winning the vote by a single vote and carrie's fucking geeked bro but before we get into the shit show that's about to ensue i just remembered a story from my own youth so i was younger than carrie i was in the sixth grade right and the most popular girl in our grade asked me out one day randomly and i'm telling you bro like this girl was a certified baddie i didn't even know what a baddie was at this point but i knew she was that okay and so for her to ask me out randomly i just knew something here wasn't adding up because to add further context i transferred schools between fifth and sixth grade so i knew absolutely nobody here i had no friends i was uprooted from everything that was familiar to me as a person who was already introverted to begin with so starting over from scratch was very difficult and i was not adjusting well so for this girl to then ask me out i was like what that's what i literally said i was like what she was like hey will you go out with me i was like huh she's like will you go out with me And I just like panicked, bro.

I froze. I didn't say a word. We were sitting in class. We had reading class together and she sat at my table. It was like her and two of her friends right there. So I just they're all three of them are like looking at me as I'm just like panicking and just going through this inner turmoil, bro. And literally my body broke down. I missed like the next two to three days of school because I was physically ill. It was so stressful for me. And she and I never spoke to each other again after that. But all that to say, I can truly understand Carrie's initial reticence when it came to Tommy asking her to prom.

I just wish that her body would have also broken down and she would have gotten physically ill. Because then, you know, all of the carnage could have been prevented. But she apparently is made of stronger stuff than I was. So the show must go on. So as Tommy and Carrie make their way to the stage, Chris and Billy are lying in wait above the stage. And Chris has her hands on the rope, ready to pull the bucket and drop this pig's blood all over Carrie. But she starts to get cold feet. however bad boy billy's like nah son we've come too far now we are doing this shit which i mean i kind of get you know again i don't i don't condone this abhorrent behavior but if you are going to go through all of this shit like literally crushing a pig skull with a sledgehammer slitting its throat and draining its blood into a bucket, then breaking into school, climbing up all this like stage shit to rig it up in the ceiling.

I think at that point you have to commit, bro. Yeah, you got to finish the job. You really do. Sue shows up right as Carrie and Tommy are on stage and she spots Chris up in the ceiling and sees the bucket. But before she can really issue a warning, Miss Desjardins intercepts her, thinking that Sue is feeling salty or jealous about the fact that Tommy and Carrie won and Carrie's up there and not her. And so she pushes her out of the gym and locks the door. Chris then finds her resolve and pulls the bucket, which sends the pig's blood tumbling on Carrie and drenches her.

And at the same time, someone also plays the tampon slash pad shower video on the big screen. And the crowd starts laughing. So Carrie is standing there totally humiliated. And as Chris and Billy make their escape, they fail to properly secure the rope. So the bucket falls, hitting Tommy in the head and killing him. Yikes. Carrie turns around, sees Tommy laying on the ground dead and begins sobbing like heavy sobs, really heavy sobs for someone that she hadn't known until like 48 hours ago or at least hadn't spoken to really until 48 hours ago.

But whatever. Sure, we all grieve differently, but she loses her shit and starts telekinetically wrecking. everybody first she uses her powers to lock the door and then she goes ham so some folks get thrown face first into those doors some folks get crushed in between the bleachers other folks get trampled because carrie like held them down she threw a table at a dude's face who was just trying to film for content she brings electrical wires down from the ceiling and sparks a fire she grabs one of those wires and starts whipping a chick with it bro like whips the fuck out of her whips her so much that she throws her into some flaming decorations which then catches her dress and lights her ass up and then carrie had also caused the sprinklers to rain water down on the ground so she throws the wires into this water and electrocutes a shit ton of other people but first she grabs Miss Desjardins, like Choke, grabs her telekinetically and brings her onto the stage safely away from all the electricity.

And while this barbecue is taking place, Carrie just calmly floats out of the building as the firefighters are arriving. But before the police have gotten there, so she kind of just walks away from everything without anybody trying to stop her. However, she sees Chris and Billy driving off and knows that they're the ones who did this shit. So she follows them. She's able to catch up as they're stuck at a red light, but it turns green before she can engage. And so they start to drive away. But before they can drive away too far, Carrie sends a telekinetic shockwave through the road that causes it to break up in front of the car, halting it in its tracks.

And dog, this entire scene is utterly absurd, bro. First of all, Carrie has had these powers for like two fucking days and somehow she can cause earthquakes. What? How does she have that kind of control? She was struggling to even like pick up shards of glass in the sink 36 hours ago. And now she is causing shockwaves, seismic activity that fuck up an entire row. This shit traveled like. a pretty decent distance like an eighth of a mile maybe i don't know but again two days bro but what's even more absurd than that is billy's response okay because as the road in front of him just like explodes essentially like forms like this big ass mountain that he can't pass he breaks and begins to reverse And all he says is shit town.

Like this dude really thinks so little of his hometown. He believes it's entirely plausible that the road would just spontaneously explode in front of him right when he's trying to escape this crime he's just committed. And that's just like a regular day in the city. Like, oh shit, the town's on that bullshit again. Here we go. I got to get out of here. Bro, what? Like, imagine someone just driving down the street in 1945 Nagasaki and just being like, oh, shit town. Like, no, I think there are some other extreme factors at play here.

But Billy gets the car turned around and starts driving back in the direction they came and they see Carrie standing in the middle of the road. So Chris tells Billy to run her down and he gives her a look that's kind of like, uh, this bitch is a little bit crazy, but he's like, whatever. Again, we've come this far. Gotta commit. So he accelerates at Carrie. who then uses her powers to stop the car instantly. It's like it just drove into a brick wall. And Billy, who's not wearing his seatbelt, gets rocked in the face by the steering wheel, which stabs his brain with his nose bone.

And he dies. Chris, however, was wearing her seatbelt, so she survives this crash. And she shoves deadass Billy to the side to reverse the car before trying to run Carrie over again. Like bruh do you not just remember what happened 12 seconds ago son? I don't know what she expected to happen here but what did happen is that Carrie lifted the car into the air but Chris keeps flooring it so Carrie throws the car down behind her. So Chris ends up flooring it into a gas station pump, which makes her face fly through the windshield.

Gets all fucked up and gasoline is like dripping around the car. But as Carrie approaches, Chris sees her is like, oh shit, but she dies. But Carrie's like, you know what? That's not enough. So Carrie still blows her ass up using the lead gas and some sparks. Carrie ends up walking all the way back home somehow going completely unnoticed by anyone despite being completely covered head to toe in pig's blood and probably soot and shit from this fire that she started but hey whatever I guess the town has other problems to worry about.

But as she gets home she sees that her mom has broken out of the prayer closet not only has she broken out of it she like clawed her way out of it so That crack that was there initially from Carrie, her mom got her fingers in there and broke it out even more. And it's like all bloody hand and fingerprints all over the place. So she was really committed to getting out of there. But Carrie's not exactly sure where she is. So she's like, all right, I guess that's a later problem. So she goes upstairs, hops in the bathtub to get all cleaned up.

And then she sees creepy ass Margaret in the hallway. And now Margaret says they need to pray and all that shit. And this whole time, though, Margaret has been speaking with a hand very noticeably behind her back. And so as they kneel down on the ground and pray and embrace, Margaret reveals that hidden hand is holding a big ass knife and she stabs Carrie in the back. A scuffle then ensues and Margaret high key was whipping Carrie's ass bro. She was slicing her up all kind of ways like Carrie couldn't even use her powers.

But finally she was able to muster just a little bit of power right before the knife lands in her eye. So then Carrie floats Margaret and impales her with every knife and sharp object in the kitchen pinning her to the wall. Looking like she's being crucified. Right by the prayer closet. Carrie unpins her mother who then dies in her arms. And as she is mourning this loss. Sue shows up on her bullshit and makes things ten times worse. Carrie starts crumbling the whole house. And Sue had randomly thrown up in an earlier scene in the film.

And now as Carrie grabs her. She's able to sense that Sue is pregnant with a girl before Sue even knew she was pregnant at all. And so she decides to spare her. She uses her telekinesis to force Sue out of the house before imploding it on herself, seemingly dying. But who knew that telekinesis made someone into an ultrasound tech at an OBGYN office? The more you know. But the last scene in the film, Sue shows up to Carrie and Margaret's grave. I think she puts some flowers down and the tombstone like cracks and you hear this scream implying that, oh, maybe Carrie's really alive still.

End of movie. Roll credits. But please do not make a sequel. So let's talk themes and symbolism. We've discussed in earlier episodes this season Stephen King's personal religious beliefs, how he believes in God, but thinks that sometimes religion can go a little bit too far. And we see that front and center here with Margaret. She is a little bit crazy. And there were some aspects of this that kind of mirrored my own upbringing. Like I was raised Christian. I was baptized and all that. But as I got older, I started to see some things and hear some things that just didn't really make sense in my own mind.

And so I made the decision to follow my own relationship with God and not what this book was saying I should do. And so with Carrie, I think she grew up. Being taught all these very strict religious guidelines and having important things omitted. And as she got older, realized that, hey, you know, one, her mother wasn't giving her the full picture. And two, the images and pictures that her mom was giving her may not be what actually is depicted in the real world. And so she made her own choice to think for herself, which I can respect.

I also think this film did a good job of like telling the story through a lens of teenaged angst, like being that 17, 18 year old kid about to go off to college and, you know, get your first taste in most instances of some kind of semblance of the real world. You know, at that age, we were all kind of feeling a little bit rebellious, feeling like adults ain't shit. And the way that the adults in this film were presented, it was like they weren't shit. I mean, Miss Desjardins was the closest one to being decent.

You know, she stood up for Carrie, I guess. But at the same time, she also slapped the taste out of her mouth in the shower scene. And whenever she was confronting Sue and Tommy about this whole prom plan, she asked Tommy. if you know hey won't you look ridiculous taking carrie to prom with you like she was a hater at her core but the key symbol amongst all this i think is the blood and i think blood was used as a symbol for both life and death so in the shower scene Whenever Carrie first got her period, I think that blood signaled the beginning of a new life for Carrie as she started her transformation into a regular teenage girl.

She's not as sheltered anymore. After this, she becomes more confident. She finds herself feeling more hopeful, thinking that, hey, you know, maybe she can have. enjoyment in life maybe she can meet a nice boy and settle down and be happy or whatever like she's thinking of these things that she had never thought were possible for her before and then you contrast that with the prom scene i think that blood signaled the death of all of this hope that carrie had been feeling the hope that she could live a normal life all that shit and it gave birth to a murderer.

And at the end, when she takes the bath and washes all the blood off, it's like she's trying to restart, just return to how things were with her and her mom, just those two. She's realizing that what's outside in the world is dangerous and maybe people don't have the best intentions and maybe her mom was right this entire time. She's kind of going in reverse. But at that point, It's too late. And at the end of the day, I think the final message that I took from this film is that there are always going to be wolves in sheep's clothing.

Sue, in my opinion, was the biggest villain in all of this shit. Even though she presented herself as this nice, sweet girl with the picture -perfect boyfriend and all that shit. Bye. no she was awful this entire plan of having tommy take carrie to prom to begin with was stupid as hell all she needed to do was apologize and she never did that she never even spoke to carrie outside of telling her hey you're being weird as fuck get your bloody hand off me And at the end, being like, hey, just stop killing people.

Like, in between those two things, she could have apologized. And this whole bloodbath likely never would have happened because her conscience would have been cleared. And she wouldn't have needed to have Tommy take Carrie to prom. And Chris wouldn't have had the opportunity to dump pig's blood on her and all that shit. Sue is the villain here. She sucks, even though she looks like she's a nice person and was feeling badly and just in the wrong situation and being peer pressured, blah, blah, blah.

No, no, you suck. And all of these bodies are on her. But that's all for me. I'm out of here. Don't forget to leave a five -star rating and subscribe to Terrorific on your platform of choice. Please and thank you. I'll see you in two weeks for the breakdown of the next Stephen King adaptation. But in the meantime, remember, always keep it spooky.

Carrie (2013) Analysis & Recap: Devil in a Pink Dress

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