Carrie by Stephen King

Carrie was one of the first scary movies I ever saw and I loved it. I have since watched it every Halloween, along with other times of the year. And I mean the original with Sissy Spacek, not the one that came out in in 2013 (Chloë Grace Moretz does a good job, but no one can hold a candle to Sissy). That being said, I am surprised I had not read the book yet. I knew it was based off of a King novel, I just had not picked it up yet. I was not disappointed in the book. And the fact that the audio book is narrated by Sissy Spacek made it that more brilliant!

(Source: Kelsey Darling)

Carrie White is a weird girl. She has an extremely religious mother who is mocked by the townspeople, and this ostracism has passed to Carrie. But her mothers behavior has nothing on the strange things that happen when Carrie is around. Things will fall off of desks, lights will go out, it rains rocks. When Carrie is bullied in the locker room after getting her period for the first time, it completely unlocked her telekinesis abilities. With the skill fully awaken and her aware of it, she is finally brave enough to begin to stand up to her mother. To try to make up for her behavior in the locker room, Sue Snell asks her boyfriend, Tommy Ross, to ask Carrie to prom. One of the other bullies, Chris Hargensen, takes a different approach and decides to teach Carrie a lesson. What happens on prom night, no one, including Carrie, saw coming.

The thing that I have always liked about Carrie, no matter how morbid this may sound, is that the bullied person ends up not taking any shit. Now, I do not approve murder under any circumstances. Again, I DO NOT APPROVE MURDER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. But Carrie does not take any shit. She forgot about the do no harm part, but she is a force to be reckoned with. But back on track, if you look past the murdering aspect, it does show that the bullied can take control. That was part of the inspiration for King when writing it. Carrie White is based off of two girls that King went to grade and high school with. In his book Danse Macabre, King describes Carrie as "Woman, feeling her powers for the first time and, like Samson, pulling down the temple on everyone in sight...Carrie uses her talent 'wild talent' to pull down the whole rotten society." The entire city disapproved of Carrie's mother and Carrie and ostracized them because they were different and extreme, and Carrie took control in a very extreme way. While I would never condone what Carrie does at prom, I also do not condone bullying.

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Now lets talk about the scare factor. For me, there are two scary factors. The prom scene is the obvious one; the less obvious one is Carrie's mom. Margaret White is a psycho!

"Margaret refused to leave until 1960, when she met Ralph White at a revival meting....

The courtship of Margaret Brigham and Ralph White terminated in marriage on March 23, 1962. On April 3, 1962, Margaret White was admitted briefly to Westover Doctors Hospital.

'Nope, she wouldn't tell us what was wrong,' Harold Allison said. 'The one time we went to see her she told us we were living in adultery even though we were hitched, and we were going to hell....

Judith Allison, however, had at least an idea of what might have been wrong with her daughter; she though that Margaret had cone through a miscarriage. If so, the baby was conceived out of wedlock. Confirmation of this would shed an interesting light on the character of Carrie's mother.

In a long and rather hysterical letter to her mother dated August 19, 1962, Margaret said that she and Ralph were living sinlessly, without 'the Curse of Intercourse'....

Of course, the calendar tells us that Carrie was conceived later that same year..." (pp. 70-71)

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Margaret White also tells Carrie that only evil women get breasts and menstruation, and quotes frequently from the Book of Revelation. When you combine the qualities with the fact that she is a rather large woman, even without the movie version of Margaret White, you get the picture of a very frightening woman that is nightmare inducing. I do not blame Carrie for wanting out from under her mothers thumb. Again, I do not condone murder.

Now lets talk about prom night. Holy hell, this is the most terrifying prom night ever! I know there are other movies about prom nights and horrible things that happen, but nothing will beat the look on Carrie's face as she is standing on the stage covered in pigs blood staring down her peers. I can clearly picture the whites of Sissy Spacek's eyes against the backdrop of red blood and chills shoot down my spine. In the book, during one of the sections from articles written later about Carrie, a student that was there talks about how someone laughed because it was the only thing to do in such an absurd situation. While I can understand that, I also have a hard time believing everyone except Miss Desjardin was the only one who wanted to reach out and help her. That would have been my first response, especially since Tommy was hit on the head with a bucket and had not moved out of his throne. The thought of being electrocuted or burned to death on prom night is frightening, and King paints a horribly beautiful picture of the deaths that took place that night.

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I really enjoyed the book and I feel like the 1976 movie does it justice. But what I love most about the book is that King's wife Tabitha believed in it, even when he did not, and for that, I am grateful for.

Rating: 9/10

Author: Stephen King

Genres: Horror, Thriller, Paranormal

Dates Read: July 28-31, 2018