Word: proms
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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CARRIE. The banal and the supernatural frighteningly, yet touchingly, juxtaposed in Director Brian De Palma's tale of how the high school prom went all wrong. Sissy Spacek is spooky as the strangely gifted heroine...
...BULK OF the film dwells on Carrie's rebellion against the domineering rule of her mother--in which case her supernatural powers serve her well--and the subsequent blossoming of the film's heroine. The stimulus behind the transformation appears in the form of an invitation to the senior prom from the Big Man on Campus (William Katt), a touching gesture of compassion that is suggested to him by his steady. To Carrie, the prom represents more than a good time or a night to be remembered fondly; it is an act of liberation, a time when she learns...
Cinderella's charmed evening is fated to end in disgrace, however. Her enemies engineer her election as prom queen, only to ruin her moment of triumph by dousing their unsuspecting victim with a vat of blood--an especially cruel reminder of the scene in the showers. DePalma has obviously deemed this moment as the climax of the film; he drags the viewer through an agonizing five-minute sequence shot entirely in slow motion. Discordant violin strains accompany the doomed couple as they ascend to the stage. The glow of Carrie's face pains us all the more as the camera...
...find complete satisfaction in Lawrence D. Cohen's screenplay. Carrie remains the eternal enigma down to her last act of self-destruction; when asked if she is enjoying herself at the outset of the prom, she answers with a cryptic "It's like being on Mars." The character is never fleshed out, although this may be the conscious intention of the script. In any case, we are left with one-dimensional identity that lingers in the mind--the One with the Power who is never quite accepted...
...novel, but its anarchic resolution seems more appropriate to one of those Night Gallery travesties than to a full-length feature film. Pointless as Carrie may appear, a screening could at least lead to a trip down Memory Lane. Think about that Duckling you never asked to the prom some time; there just might have been a little Carrie buried down there...