Ever since Stephen King released Carrie in 1974, her story has been told in multiple ways on the big and small screens. Today, it is being brought into the modern day in the Prime Video series Carrie.
I have to admit that I never read the book because I don’t read. However, I have seen all the on-screen adaptations. We don’t know much about Carrie White’s (Summer H. Howell) dad from any of them. However, in the first episode, we learn a little more about him and why she is forced to go to school for the first time so late in her life.
Howell’s character is naive, unlike the past versions, and she is happy to go to school. Her mom (Samantha Sloyan) would love to have her daughter locked up and hidden from the world, but the law won’t allow her to do that anymore.
Since Carrie has been sheltered her whole life, she does not know how to prepare for school or a normal teenage life. Whatever she knows is what her mother tells her. And that is very limited.
So the kids in her school are going to use that against her. On her first day at school, she meets Sue (Siena Agudong), Chris (Alison Thornton), and Tina (Josie Totah). Sue sincerely wants to be her friend, but the other two see her as their new target to torment. And they do.
One of the ways the producers bring her story into 2026 is that they have Chris use social media to torture Carrie. Her happiness starts to subside as she becomes the target of their bullying.
One day, Carrie meets another student, Emaline (Thalia Dudek). She used to be the new girl. As happy as she is that someone else is the target, she befriends Carrie. With that, Carrie is not alone. But is their friendship a good thing?
Along with becoming a woman, Carrie is starting to experience her powers. However, she does not know how to use or control her telekinesis. But she starts to realize it comes out when she is angry. And she has a lot of reasons to be angry. And we know what happens at the prom…
Since Carrie’s story, in the past, has been told in less than two hours, we never got to see what made her who she is. Not only that, we didn’t truly understand how domineering her mom was to her. And what about the girls who plotted to destroy her big night?
All of that can be told in this 8-episode miniseries dreamed up by Mike Flanagan. We go into their homes and see their lives in and out of school. We learn how their home lives shape the mean girls they are. Are they the victims too?
Since they updated the classic story, modern-day elements play into it all. I am not going to lie, some of it works and makes the horror even more horrific. But some of it feels like filler that hurts the story more than it helps.
Like the 1976 movie, the show does not go heavy on special effects. But when they do in the final episode- not a spoiler because we know what happened- they are brilliant. I am not a fan of CGI, but I approve of how they used it here.
Since I couldn’t even get past the first episode of It: Welcome to Derry, I was afraid this reimagining would make me want to go all Carrie. Instead, I found myself binging it all in a day because I needed to know what happened next.
Is it perfect? Nothing is. But I was sincerely impressed by how they took Carrie into the new millennium and made her series one you don’t want to hit the stop button on.
All eight episodes are streaming on Prime Video. Only watch it in the dark if you dare.
