Carrie (Special Edition) |  | Director: Brian De Palma
Actors: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, John Travolta, William Katt
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
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Rating:  322 reviews
Sales Rank: 4845
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 98 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.1 x 0.6
MPN: D1002332D
ISBN: 0792850440
UPC: 027616865519
EAN: 9780792850441
ASIN: B00005K3NR
Theatrical Release Date: November 3, 1976
Release Date: August 28, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A young girl with telekinetic powers is the school wallflower and she bears the brunt of her classmates jokes. Blood runs rampant when she gets her revenge.
Genre: Horror
Rating: R
Release Date: 3-AUG-2004
Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com essential video
This terrifying adaptation of Stephen King's bestselling horror novel was directed by shock maestro Brian De Palma for maximum, no-holds-barred effect. Sissy Spacek stars as Carrie White, the beleaguered daughter of a religious kook (Piper Laurie) and a social outcast tormented by her cruel, insensitive classmates. When her rage turns into telekinetic powers, however, school's out in every sense of the word. De Palma's horrific climax in a school gym lingers forever in the memory, though the film is also built upon Spacek's remarkable performance and Piper Laurie's outlandishly creepy one. John Travolta has a small part as a thug, De Palma's future wife, Nancy Allen, is his girlfriend, and Amy Irving makes her screen debut as one of the girls giving Carrie a hard time. --Tom Keogh
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 322
 Thou Shalt Not Suffer A Witch To Live February 25, 2010
G. Garner (vicksburg,ms)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
People who try to read sociological implications into this film almost always center their attention around the mother. This stands to reason, since so many film critics are Leftists who hate religion, and Carrie's mom is an easy target. Personally, I think this angle is somewhat exxagerated. I live in the Southeast, and I have known countless religious people. Some are hypocrites, to be sure, and some are ignorant. Some are intellectually inconsistent. But NONE of them behave like the mother in this film. Such people do exist, but they are part of a very tiny minority. And very few Christians would recognize the 'theology' that is embraced by this character.
Be that as it may, Carrie does portray real-life, contemporary human evil about as well as any movie ever has. But this reality is not about the mother figure, or any organized religion. Rather, it is centered in the portrayal of the high school.
When people hear the word 'evil', they tend to envision someone or something melodramatic, like Joseph Stalin or Ted Bundy. Something extreme. However, this film chooses to examine the evil that we have to navigate every day.
For instance, a nice person being tormented, day in and day out, just for sport. Or a principal, upon noticing that Carrie is upset that he calls her by the wrong name, proceeding to call her that name again and again. Or the ostensibly sympathetic gym teacher, who inwardly harbors the same scathing contempt for Carrie as the girls in the locker room. Or the teacher, who mocks Carrie for daring to meekly express an opinion, while openly fawning over the popular football player.
Real life evil is there, pretty much everywhere you want to look. And 90% of it is completely legal.
The critique that Carrie offers on modern American culture is not about religion. It is about the mindset that allows some people to be treated like gods, and others to be treated like dirt. As such, I think this film deals with that brutal reality about as well as any movie ever has.
Aside from these cultural considerations, Carrie works as a pure horror film. It is a brilliant film, that transcends the genre as completely as possible. You don't have to like horror to like this movie. It is a great story first. It gets lumped in with horror, because of the violence of the final half hour, and the macabre imagery, with the pigs' blood and the creepy house. But there is really no accurate label for Carrie. Like all great films, it is too impressive to be summed up with some simple convenience store label.
Don't get me wrong-it works as horror. I'm just saying, it's such a magnificent film, it makes genre irrelevant.
Carrie is unique in that it combines elements of the more brutish side of life, with qualities that are more ethereal and artistic in nature. The music is perfect. It is also a beautifully crafted film, from a purely visual standpoint. But even this is an understatement, because it is far more than the sum of its parts. Lots of movies have good scores, or interesting cinematography, but these feel like isolated elements. By way of contrast, with a great film such as Carrie, these things are seamlessly incorporated into an astonishing work of art.
The cast are all ideal. A lot of credit always goes to Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie, and this is fully justified. However, I believe that the 'bad' girl, Chris, is a case of about as perfect casting as you can find for a role of this sort. She is absolutely perfect in her portrayal of the spoiled, popular girl. The fascinating thing about her lies in the contrast between her facial features and the reality that lives beneath. Towards the end of the movie, we get lots of closeups of her eyes and mouth. Her eyes are huge and beautiful, almost like teddy bear eyes. She also has a nice smile, and gorgeous dimples.
Under different circumstances, people tend to associate these qualities with innocence. Not here. The bright eyes,brimming with excitement.......... the sensuous licking of her luscious lips........... the clasping of her hands up and down the rope...............she is shown in the most intensely erotic of lights. But this nearly orgasmic level of arousal is being stimulated by her anticipation at Carrie's impending humiliation.
A beautiful, popular girl, who has everything anyone could want, going to all this trouble, and taking so much pleasure, in tormenting someone at the opposite end of the spectrum, in torturing a lonely and unhappy girl who wants nothing but to be left in peace.
The insight this story offers on the human condition is not a happy one.
Of course, you could argue that this film does not tell the whole story, either. And you'd be right. But it does choose to deal with ugly truths that many people would rather overlook.
Unlike most horror movies, Carrie is a fascinating story about people, first. It is as much tragedy as horror. Towards the end, where Carrie turns to walk off the stage, and that wall of flame erupts behind her..............that is about as powerful as anything you'll ever see on a movie screen. You'll rarely see anything so beautiful, yet simultaneously so terrible and sad.
Carrie is a masterpiece. I would rank it right along with Halloween as the greatest horror film I've ever seen.
Good Movie February 17, 2010
S. Miller
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've had this movie, for years on VHS, but I needed it on dvd. So glad you had it. Fast delivery, too! Kudos!!!
Love It! February 8, 2010
Zarplex (Springfield, Va USA)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Just so everyone understands how I rated this movie, here is the break down:
1 star - hated it
2 stars - disliked it
3 stars - average
4 stars - liked it
5 stars - loved it!
So before everyone starts sending me hate mail about how the movie isn't perfect, understand that I am not saying that it is. I will admit that a lot of people don't seem to like this movie as much as I do though. However, I think that some of the most fantastic scenes ever caught on film exist in this movie.
I really LOVE Piper Laurie and Sissey Spacek. They were amazing! They are the first thing that I will ever mention about this movie because I continue to go back and re-watch this film because of them.
I loved all the details that Sissey Spacek put into Carrie's character. She would stretch her sleeves to show her nervousness. Her face would almost seem to genuinely swell up when she was dealing with pressure. I was quite frankly flabbergasted. I don't know how she did it. Of all the actors/actresses in this movie, Sissey Spacek just really stood out. She did not look like she was acting. I kept wondering to myself the entire time, where did they get this girl from?
Piper Laurie I could tell was taking a comedic approach to her script and I loved it! She did a bang up job in her performance. I loved her interpretation of the pain that she was experiencing as pleasurable. I could sense her strange sense of humor as she did it and it definitely added a creepy touch to her performance. Plus, I just loved watching her as she confided to Carrie her deepest darkest secrets from her past and as she bombarded Carrie with her warped perspective on her religious beliefs.
Heck, I loved the casting in general and I feel bad picking out favorites. For instance, I think that Nancy Allen (Robocop!), Amy Irving, Priscilla Pointer, and Betty Buckley were also in some of the best scenes ever caught on film in this movie. Priscilla Pointer and Amy Irving were undoubtedly in the scariest scene in the entire movie. I completely loved Nancy Allen's performance where she was in a car with John Travolta's character, Billy Nolan. Lastly, Betty Buckley was perfectly chosen for her role as a gym instructor and I loved watching her whipping everyone in her class into shape for the terrible things that they had done to Carry.
I loved the use of nudity in order to expose the characters' frailnesses and fragilities. It really created a sense of pure evil in the scenes that had nudity and it made me think about the kind of evil that people were capable of (even though this is all fiction). I would certainly hope that something like what is depicted in this movie would never happen in real life.
I loved the use of cameras and editing in the film. I don't think many people pay attention to just how cool this was. There is a scene where the film was sped up during a moment of comedic relief. I thought it was very appropriate and made the scene very funny. There is also a scene where the camera travels along a contraption that will ultimately be used towards Carrie's humiliation and then it completes its shot by focusing on the contraption's targets, Carrie and Tommy Ross.
Lastly, I'll complete this by quoting the lines from the three scenes that constantly go through my head whenever I think about this movie:
1) Carrie: I mean, all the kids think I'm funny, and I don't wanna be. I wanna be normal, I wanna start to try me, a whole person, before it's too late for me to -
[Margaret throws tea on her face, Carrie wipes it off]
2) Margaret White: Witch. Got Satan's Power.
Carrie White: It has nothing to do with Satan, Mama. It's me. Me. If I concentrate hard enough, I can move things.
3) Margaret White: And Eve was weak, say it!
Carrie: No!
Margaret White: Eve was weak!
Carrie: No!
Margaret White: Eve was weak, say it woman!
Carrie: No!
Margaret White: Say it!
Carrie: Eve was weak, Eve was weak.
Carrie (Special Edition) January 27, 2010
Arnita D. Brown (USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Carrie White is the outsider of her class. She's a mousy girl, all of her classmates hate her, and her mother is a religious fanatic who walks around in a black cape. After she unexpectedly has her first period, she is teased by the girls more ruthlessly than before. The gym teacher punishes the girls that were involved and one of them, Sue Snell, feels sorry for what she did and asks her boyfriend to take Carrie to the prom instead of her. But another girl that has been banned from the prom, Chris Hargenson, isn't so forgiving and hatches an evil plan with her boyfriend that involves Carrie and a bucket full of pig's blood. But what none of the students realize is that Carrie has the power of telekinesis, the power to move things with your mind, and that when you make her mad, she transforms from an innocent girl to a rage-filled monster. And this is gonna be a prom no one will ever forget. You want to call this horror movie or thriller or whatever else is up to you, Carrie's scope can't reach beyond just one genre. It is a thriller, but at the same time a very humane movie. This movie wasn't made for cheap scares: every scene is brilliantly captured. The scary parts may be rare but when they are there you just can't move from your seat. If you are looking for a terrifying but also moving movie, Carrie is just right for you.
 Great Movie but Lousy Blu-ray Transfer January 24, 2010
NYC critic (NEW YORK, NEW YORK United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you enjoy this film as much as I do, I have bad news: The Blu-ray transfer is mediocre at best. Scenes are soft and often grainy, lacking any of the real clarity high def can bring. Sound also doesn't really benefit; it's slightly sharper but that's about it. Unless you don't already own the film, stick with the regular DVD. The upgrade, even at such a low price, isn't really worth it.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 322
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