Carrie Would Be So Good If It Was Good

It’s October 3rd. In celebration I am wearing the only pink thing I own (a button-down shirt) in honor of the Plastics and a t-shirt that says HARD TIMES on it in honor of the Elric brothers. I’ve never seen Fullmetal Alchemist but I assume this is an appropriate choice.

October also means it’s horror movie season, and in celebration of that, Mitchell and I watched Carrie at the Brattle last night.

Carrie, despite having been out for the past half-century, was new to me. I’d never seen the film nor read the short story it’s based on, but I had culturally osmosed what I assumed were the relevant beats: teen girl, crazy religious mother, some kind of menstrually-activated psychic powers, bucket of blood at the prom. And I was right! Those are the relevant beats! In fact, they’re kind of the only beats. The experience of watching Carrie is the experience of, for 98 minutes, going “wow yeah this really was based on a short story, huh?” Crucially, the film is not bad! It’s a classic for a reason! Even things about it that read as goofy or bad to a modern eye actually made it a stronger film, in my opinion (I’m thinking particularly of the extremely obtrusive musical stings and the weird camera work — kaleidoscope effects, split screen, shaky cam for only one scene, that kind of thing. Yes, they’re heavy-handed, but they really effectively ping-pong the movie from genre to genre, allowing it to turn on a dime from melodrama to teen rom-com to religious horror, always reflecting whatever genre Carrie White believes herself to be inhabiting at any given time. The genius of this movie’s schlocky, PowerPoint-ass shots and jarring music is an essay for a different day, but seriously, I do think it’s brilliant.)

But I wouldn’t say it’s a good movie, either. The relationships between the characters receive the absolute minimum amount of fleshing out while still technically being explored; the visual climax and emotional climax of the story are not actually the same scene and are separated by a vehicular explosion that somehow defuses rather than heightens any tension that’s been built up thus far; John Travolta is there for absolutely no reason; Carrie’s mom, despite being the villain, is kind of right about female sexuality turning you into a sinful monster, or at least her beliefs are subtextually justified by the fact that she gets to die a saint’s death before the house collapses toward Hell with Carrie inside it; and instead of padding the runtime with anything new or deeper to say about the characters or the horror of Catholicism or femininity whatever, they pad it with scenes of teen boys cruising around in vintage cars and shopping for tuxedoes despite the fact that there is no reason for this movie to have any boys in it at all, really.

Carrie isn’t good. But it would be SO GOOD if it was good.

Because it has so much that it could be saying about womanhood and sin, and it refuses to say any of that, because it was made in 1976 when we were all still scared of lesbians. The first scene of the movie is a wet, naked Carrie White being symbolically assaulted with symbols of female adulthood (and therefore sexuality) by her many beautiful peers and rescued by her equally beautiful gym teacher, who first slaps her and then cradles her (still wet and naked, by the way!) in a way that really blurs the line between big sister and lover. And yet there is not a single instance of lesbianism in this movie! Not even the vaguest suggestion that a woman might desire another woman! Which is wild, because the sin of female desire is the sole thing Carrie’s crazy mom is obsessed with! She literally puts Carrie in a closet, repeatedly, whenever she feels Carrie has been sinful!

My thesis is this: Carrie would be a better movie if it was about lesbianism.

“But Gus!” I hear you say. “The movie was made in 1976! You couldn’t have lesbians back then!” Well, first of all, John Waters made Female Trouble in 1974, and second of all, it’s been 50 years so I’d say we’re more than in the clear for a gay remake, but third of all, what I’m proposing isn’t a 2020s version of this film that says lesbianism will give you psychic powers or help you kill your homophobic mom with knives or anything. I do think someone should make that movie. I’m gay, and I love being gay, and I would love a story about people who love being gay so much it gives them psychic powers that they use to kill their homophobic mom with knives. I think it would be a fun movie. I don’t, however, think that movie would be Carrie, which is why that’s not what I’m proposing.

What I’m proposing is a version of this film that could have been made in 1976, but which is about lesbianism, and therefore is good.

No longer must we suffer under the tyranny of Stephen King’s heterosexuality. No longer must we include John Travolta as a cardboard cutout to stand around and occasionally slaughter pigs while unsuccessfully pretending that he is contributing anything of substance to the film. We can fix this. We can do better. We can build a better Carrie. A Carrier, if you will. Maybe even the Carriest.

Here’s my pitch.

Carrie White, a deeply sheltered girl, gets her first period in the shower after gym class. This terrifies her — she has no idea what’s happening, since her mother has never taught her what menstruation is and the state of sex education in 1976 is an absolute travesty — and shrieks and begs the other girls for help. They, being worldly high schoolers with Farrah Fawcett haircuts and denim capris, taunt her by throwing tampons and pads at her.

Sensing this classic instance of teen miscreant cruelty from her office, gym teacher Miss Collins intervenes, putting herself between Carrie and the other girls, sending them away. She drops to her knees in the shower and slaps Carrie to bring her out of her screaming/crying fit, then lets the girl cling to her with still-bloody hands and weep into her chest. She holds Carrie. She pets Carrie’s hair.

Miss Collins is young and beautiful, but she is not as young as the teenagers she supervises on a daily basis, and she gets a new crop of them every year, eternally fresh-faced, eternally 17, their faces and names changing, their youth always the same, while Miss Collins is only getting older. She misses high school; she feels she didn’t do it right the first time. She sees something of herself in shy, naive Carrie, something she wishes not only to protect but to cultivate, to bring to the surface, to live vi-Carrie-ously through. She takes it upon herself not only to teach Carrie what a period is but to show Carrie how to put a tampon in, and when Carrie is too afraid to do it herself — mute head-shaking, wide eyes, a mumbled reference to her mother — Miss Collins inserts it for her. Instead of a lightbulb bursting when Carrie is freaking out, we get hints of the lightbulb tremoring throughout the scene while Carrie’s emotions are high, but it does not burst until Carrie is physically penetrated. Despite the ostensible tenderness with which Miss Collins is helping Carrie, the scene visually mirrors the sanitary products being thrown at Carrie just minutes earlier. Both are intrusions.

Carrie is sent home for the day, and we still get the telekinetic rage-breaking of the principal’s ashtray when he fucks up her name, but now the scene at home between Carrie and her mother involves not just Carrie demanding to know why her mother never taught her about periods, but also her mother discovering the existence of the tampon. Perhaps Miss Collins calls to check on Carrie mid-scene, dividing it into the period half, in which Carrie’s mother thrusts the Bible at her and demands that she repeat verses but still expresses faith that Carrie can be cured and offers Carrie some form of tender touch when she acquiesces, and the lesbianism half, in which Carrie’s mother demands to know who the teacher on the phone was, Carrie naively explains the ‘help’ she received from Miss Collins, and Carrie’s mother immediately and violently drags Carrie to the prayer closet without further explanation and despite Carrie’s protests. Notably, this — dragging Carrie to the prayer closet — is the last time we see Carrie’s mother willingly touch Carrie until the climax of the film. Later, Carrie telekinetically breaks her mirror in frustration.

Back at school, we get the Carrie-liking-Tommy’s-poem scene essentially unchanged from the original film, except that nice girl Sue speaks up and says she agrees with Carrie, that she liked the poem too, by way of apology and to draw attention away from Carrie. Miss Collins still gives the other girls the choice of exercise detention or no prom, but partway through their first exercise detention, a confused Carrie arrives believing she has accidentally missed a make-up gym class or something, leaving Miss Collins to explain out of the other girls’ earshot that, no, Carrie is excused from gym class entirely until prom. Being unable to hear their conversation, mean girl Chris and her girl best friend Norma channel their anger at being forced into exercise detention into theories about why Miss Collins is so protective of Carrie. Sue shuts these theories down. (Note that my anti-lesbian language may not be period-accurate; I invite corrections.)

CHRIS: I bet they’re lezzy for each other.
NORMA: Ew, Chris! Don’t say that!
CHRIS: No, seriously, I bet they’re in the field house every day after school screwing each other’s brains out. I bet they both get off on punishing us like this.
NORMA: Oh my god, Chris, that’s so gross! So, like, they like seeing all of us in our gym uniforms?
CHRIS: Oh, totally. It’s fucked up.
SUE: Shut up, Chris.
CHRIS: Come on, Sue. I’m not about to let a couple of lezzos get away with forcing us all into this death march.
SUE: Chris, would you just drop it?

Notably, the tone with which Chris and Norma discuss Miss Collins’ potential homosexuality is one of barely suppressed glee. They, too, experience a healthy adolescent curiosity about and attraction to their fellow girls, and to their young, hot gym teacher, but they, unlike sheltered Carrie, know it is not socially acceptable to express this attraction, so they must displace it onto a hateable target and pretend disgust. Sue, as the only actual heterosexual in the movie, is legitimately disgusted both by Chris and Norma’s bullying and by its prurient tenor, hence why she shuts it down, and why she feels so guilty for participating in the tampon-throwing earlier. Chris storms off, leading to her being banned from the prom, but the other girls remain.

After the conclusion of exercise detention, Miss Collins comes across Carrie moping near the field house bathrooms. Carrie claims that she is sick of being on the outside of everything and that she would do anything to feel normal for a change. She would kill to be normal. Miss Collins pulls her into the field house bathroom and does her little makeover scene from the original movie: complimenting Carrie’s hair, her eyes, her cheekbones, recommending a little makeup, a little curl. It is clear that, as they look in the mirror together, every change to Carrie’s appearance that Miss Collins recommends would serve to make Carrie look more like her. Having finished with complimenting Carrie’s face, Miss Collins goes further, admiring the rest of her body, suggesting ways for Carrie to show off her breasts and hips, touching her. Carrie becomes agitated; one of the porcelain sinks cracks, then explodes into chunks. Carrie flees; Miss Collins, baffled, also leaves. Sue emerges from one of the bathroom stalls, having overheard the exchange between the two.

Sue convinces Tommy to ask Carrie to the prom both out of guilt at her participation in the tampon-throwing and, it is implied through Sue’s stress of how important it is for Carrie to have “a regular night with a regular boy,” because Sue is concerned about Carrie’s relationship with Miss Collins. Tommy accedes, asking Carrie to the prom while she is in the library researching telekinesis. The book emphasizes that telekinetic powers are frequently activated by strong emotion.

As in the original film, Carrie at first refuses but ultimately agrees to attend the prom with Tommy, although her mother discovers Tommy on the porch just as he’s leaving after Carrie accepts. Carrie’s mother chases Tommy off and orders Carrie to the prayer closet, which Carrie refuses, demonstrating her new telekinetic abilities and informing her mother that things will be different around the house from now on, that Carrie is going to be normal for once. Carrie’s mother expresses her belief that Carrie is a witch.

Word reaches Chris that Carrie is going to the prom with Tommy. The planning for the prom prank now occurs entirely between Chris and Norma; they have boyfriends who are shown briefly in their planning scene and who textually exist only to be props. The boyfriends have perhaps one line apiece, and Chris and Norma ignore them outright. Importantly, the prom prank no longer involves actual pigs’ blood; instead, Chris and Norma plot to spike the punch at prom with the hope that straitlaced Carrie will get drunk and make a fool of herself onstage as prom queen. On top of that, they rig up a giant glass punch bowl to douse Carrie in blood-red, sticky-sweet punch.

Carrie still sews her own prom dress and telekinetically dominates her mother, who is becoming increasingly thou-shalt-not-suffer-a-witch-to-live-level unhinged. We get the “they’re all going to laugh at you” line. Sue and Tommy are still accosted by Miss Collins demanding to know why Tommy has invited Carrie to the prom, although this time it has a distinct undercurrent of homoerotic jealousy to it. Tommy notes that he’s been banned from getting anywhere near Carrie’s property, so he can’t even take her anyway. Miss Collins, turning on a dime, says that that’s no problem since she, as a chaperone, can pick Carrie up. Sue expresses reservations but is overruled by Miss Collins, and by Tommy, who doesn’t understand why it’s a bad idea.

On prom night, as Carrie is getting ready to leave, she descends the stairs to find the entire first floor of the house filled with candles. Her mother confronts her about the prom, and Carrie, believing her mother is still upset about Tommy, attempts to reassure her that it’s fine, she’s not going with Tommy, Miss Collins is picking her up. She insists again that she’s just going to have a normal night like a normal teenage girl, that she’s nervous, that all she wants is for her mother to reassure her and tell her it’s going to be fine. We hear Miss Collins beep the horn outside. Carrie’s mother offers her a parting hug, stabbing Carrie in the back and saying something about Carrie being the devil’s spawn and that horrible teacher having seduced her to sin; just like in the original film, Carrie telekinetically flings the rest of the knives in the house at her mother, killing her in the classic St. Sebastian pose. Unlike the original, however, Carrie pulls the knife from her own back — we see the skin begin to knit together, leaving a bloody, oblong tear in Carrie’s pale pink prom dress, which she covers with her shawl — and emerges from the candlelit house to climb into Miss Collins’ car. The slam of the door behind her shakes some of the tapers, which are beginning to burn dangerously low. Carrie’s eyes are wide, unfocused, and the camera work and music become dreamy and bright; the film becomes an unsettlingly, almost aggressively Normal Teen Movie.

Outside the prom, Miss Collins and Carrie have a heart-to-heart in Miss Collins’ car, where it is obvious that Carrie is not all there, but her radiant excitement at attending the prom prevents Miss Collins from pressing too hard.

MISS COLLINS: How does it feel? Going to your senior prom?
CARRIE: It’s wonderful. It’s magical. It’s — it’s normal. I feel so wonderfully normal.
MISS COLLINS: You are, Carrie. Don’t you see? You are. We are. All of this… it’s all perfectly normal.

Miss Collins admires Carrie’s homemade dress, sliding her hand up the back of it, only to encounter the ragged, bloodied hole in the fabric with the hint of a wound still visible — we visually mirror Miss Collins’ fingers in the tampon insertion scene here. Before she can inquire about it, Tommy encounters the pair and demands, jovially, that Miss Collins release his date.

Chris sneaks into the prom. Norma swaps the ballots so that Tommy and Carrie will win prom king and queen. The students get tipsy off the spiked punch; the teachers are too preoccupied with also getting tipsy to do anything about it. Miss Collins hovers over Carrie, who is rapidly becoming drunk, slurring her words, kissing Tommy — Miss Collins tries to separate the two — and stumbling on her way up the stairs to the stage when she is announced as prom queen. Some drunken students laugh at her stumble, and the lights vibrate, but Tommy takes her hand and Carrie calms herself. She is Prom Queen. She is the Most Normal Teenage Girl. Her mother was wrong. Her mother is dead. Nobody is laughing at her.

Sue arrives to check on Carrie and Tommy and spots Chris and Norma hiding under the stage, getting ready to pull the rope on the overhead bowl of punch. Just like the original, we build the tension until it is almost unbearable, but in this version, Carrie just has time to see what’s coming before it all pours down on her.

The rope twitches. Sue runs for the stage. Miss Collins spots her and intervenes. Carrie sees Miss Collins keeping Sue away from the stage — why? Chris tugs the rope. Carrie turns her wide, unfocused eyes up. The smiles and applause of the students turn to jeers as the liquid cascades. “They’re all going to laugh at you.” Reflexively, Carrie reaches a hand to her back. Her fingers come back wet with blood. The lights hum. The stage shakes. At last the first red drop splashes on the crown of Carrie’s head. She looks down at the blood on her fingers. The punch bowl empties. Carrie is covered in blood.

Not punch. Blood.

Chris and Norma frantically debate what could have happened.

NORMA: What — what’s that smell?
CHRIS: …Blood.
NORMA: What? You poured blood on her? You said you were going to use punch!
CHRIS: I did! You saw me mix it! It’s punch and red wine, that’s it.
NORMA: Then why does it smell like blood?

Their debate is interrupted before they can land on the explanation of ‘actual real-life transubstantiation’ by Carrie’s third-reel gore-fest; red lights, an exploding crystal punch bowl that lacerates everyone in her vicinity, a firehose spraying students away from the exits, lights and beams falling and crushing students and teachers alike. Miss Collins makes a rush toward Carrie and is killed in some particularly bloody and violent way — perhaps there can be a prom king scepter that impales her, to really drive home the fact that it’s still 1976 and we, despite including lesbians in our movie, are still distinctly anti-lesbian. The stage explodes upward, and Chris and Norma are revealed. The rope, still hanging limply in Chris’ hands, twists and contorts into a pair of loops before jerking violently upwards, hanging Chris and Norma. We get a shot between the legs of the corpses of the loose end of the rope dangling.

Sue has managed to survive the massacre and is desperately yanking at the doors of the gym. Carrie approaches her, and Sue begs to be set free.

SUE: Carrie! Carrie, please, Carrie, I tried to stop them. Please, Carrie, I just want to go home. Please let’s just go home, Carrie, please.

Mentions of home activate something in Carrie — her mother was right, oh God, her mother was right all along. Everyone did laugh at her. Sue did try to stop them. Miss Collins, that horrible teacher, kept Sue from stopping them. Carrie can’t stay here. She has to go home, too.

The doors to the gym burst open, and Carrie flees, with Sue hot on her heels as the gym collapses into rubble behind her, killing all those left inside. As Carrie runs, barefoot and blood-soaked, she leaves dark red footprints in her wake. She arrives at her house to find it on fire, the candles having burned down. Through the window, she can just see her mother’s corpse, still pinned up by the knives, eyes alight like the statue of St. Sebastian in the prayer closet, and she thinks she sees her mother trying to say something, tell her something, reaching her arms out in a hug.

Sue arrives just in time to see Carrie run to meet her mother. The flames catch the soaked hem of her dress, deep red — although now it does look more like wine than blood, after all — and she goes up like a torch. Carrie screams. Sue screams. The house explodes outward into an inferno, engulfing Sue, and everything goes black.

We can even still have the scene at the end where Sue has a nightmare about Carrie’s bloody hand reaching up from Hell and grabbing her, with the sole difference that, when she wakes up, Sue’s own hands are blistered and bloody from the burns. The last shot is of her gripping her bedsheets in terror, leaving bloodstains behind.

See? Isn’t that better? If any of you happen to know someone with Hollywood connections and/or ten million dollars lying around, do me a favor and forward this to them.

I’ll be back with the usual Come Down chapter on Wednesday. No word yet on whether off-the-dome writing like this is going to become a staple of Might Makes Write, but it’s certainly a possibility. Depends on whether you enjoyed it, I guess. Anyway, see you Wednesday! xoxo