Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) might be a schoolgirl with telekinetic powers, but Matilda she aint. Bullied by her classmates and virtually ignored by all but one of her teachers (Betty Buckley), this girl needs help and, I might be taking a wild stab in the dark here, but I blame the parents.
Dad, you see, did a runner years ago, whilst mum (a laughably OTT Piper Laurie) is two bricks short of a bungalow. A fanatical God-botherer, she locks Carrie in the cupboard with a life-size model of Jesus, calls absolutely everything under the sun a sin and, worst of all, incessantly pesters the neighbours (whove clearly not yet worked out that they could hide behind the sofa and pretend not to be in whenever she rings the doorbell). Yup, Old Mother White is well and truly off her rocker.
It looks like things could be looking up for young Carrie when burst sofa look-a-like Tommy (William Katt) asks her to the prom but little do they know that a pre-Saturday Night Fever John Travolta lurks in the background armed with a bucketful of pigs blood. The swine!
Yes, this is 1970s horror in all its full-blown crapness. Director Brian De Palma replaces aspects such as shock and tension with pointless split-screen visuals, unintelligible camerawork and a tedious slo-mo build-up to the downright ridiculous finale. While Spaceks performance in the lead role is a good one considering the circumstances, not a single character in the film seems to have any sense of either perspective or reality.
Based on a novel by the hit-and-miss Stephen King, Carrie is considered in many circles to be a horror classic. So by all means give it a whirl and make up your own mind but, personally, I cannot think of a single reason to recommend it.