‘Carrie’ Review: Not Worthy of the Crown

Stephen King is the most-adapted living writer by a large margin with a seismic amount of films and TV shows adapting damn near every book he’s ever written. Some of those are among the greatest works ever made, while some are among the worst. None of that is on King but interestingly, he has championed Mike Flanagan as the best adapter of his work. Mike Flanagan has previously adapted 3 of King’s novels/novellas into films and this is his first foray into a TV adaptation of King’s work.

It’s no surprise that Flanagan would want to tackle the immensely popular Carrie but the format he used to do so is fascinating. This is the first time that Carrie is being adapted into a TV show despite being made into movies three times. It’s a book with under 200 pages with a relatively streamlined plot that does seem perfect for the big screen. Despite that, Mike Flanagan is no stranger to TV, having produced six miniseries/one-season shows in eight years so it makes sense why he went with a show but I’m not sure he made the right choice.

Carrie opens with a call placed to the police about a “real bad fire” in the gym at the Ewen High School. We quickly discover through interviews about the disaster that over 200 people have died as they ask about “Carrie”. Carrie White is starting her sophomore year of high school at Ewen, her first day of school ever in fact. She has been homeschooled her entire life but due to the unforeseen circumstances of her father’s death she is now forced by the state to go much to the chagrin of her controlling mother.

It quickly becomes clear Carrie hasn’t interacted with anyone her age before and she doesn’t quite understand the social cues of the other high schoolers. Nonetheless, she meets and “befriends” Sue Snell, Chris Hargensen and Tina Blake, three seniors. Due to her social ineptness, she is the subject of bullying particularly by Chris Hargensen. During a school shooter drill, Hargensen convinces Carrie that the drill is the real deal while Sue fails to comfort her, which leads to a full-on freakout from Carrie. Her supernatural abilities show up during her distress which results in a mounted TV falling on the “shooter’s” foot.

The first episode, “First Period” (a fantastic double entendre of a title) is a very strong start to the show as it builds out its world of characters, some from King’s novel and some original. The extent of her mother’s control over every part of Carrie’s life is an interesting exploration that Flanagan does a good job with. There’s also a sequence where Carrie gets her first period but she doesn’t understand what a period is so she freaks out and thinks she’s dying which leads to her being mercilessly bullied by Chris Hargensen and the other girls in the locker room as they throw tampons on her as they film her. This is the best directed sequence in the film with some POV shots that help you feel her distress.

The first episode as a whole is honestly the best part of the entire show, and perhaps the only great part. Not to say the show is wholly bad after that but it’s the last time the show feels cohesive. The arc of Carrie as the innocent girl who’s discovering all these new things for the first time and getting away from the sheltered life her mother has given her while being bullied by Chris Hargensen, particularly cyberbullied is the strongest part of the show. Everything else outside of that ranges from passable to straight-up bad.

The show gets worse as it goes, particularly because the characters are way too bland for their own good. There are three layers of characters here: the teens, the parents and the faculty. The latter two in particular is where much of the show’s failings come into play. The storyline of the teacher stuff isn’t necessarily bad but it’s far too underexplored for the impact it tries to have. The parent storyline, particularly everything to do with Hargensen’s parents is awful.

There’s too much sloppy character work and dialogue for way too many supposed major moments with some rough monologues in the mix. Another somewhat major issue this show has is its excessive use of ill-fitting indie/pop songs is quite distracting and at times, way too on the nose for its own good.

The back half of Carrie is just waiting to be buried in rubble, literally. The show from the start has been building up to the prom event and I think this is a large part of my disappointment with this show. It’s a very underwhelming sequence that makes baffling character choices and adds some elements to the story that hurt more than help it.

The show by the end makes it very clear this is not a miniseries as it teases more but everything about that storyline is quite bad. It bleeds into the main storyline much more than it should while not giving anything of real intrigue along the way which only muddies the show.

Not to ask why this was made, but I’m not sure what Flanagan was trying to accomplish here. Flanagan has been proclaimed the king of Stephen King adaptations by the author himself but it’s quite jarring that the execution of this show, regardless of its adaptation choices is largely bad.

The show adds a lot of elements not present in the book that aren’t great but also then changes some major parts of the book to set up more Carrie stories which sort of ruins everything interesting about the story at hand. I really wish I had more positive things to say about the show but it didn’t live up to what I tend to expect from Flanagan.

I’m not sure what to expect from future seasons if this show is renewed. There are shows like The Leftovers that are able to take on the book in its first season and do something original in the later seasons that transcend what came before but based on this first season, I’m not sure if Carrie is going to be that unfortunately.

Carrie is out now on Prime Video. The show stars Summer H. Howell, Samantha Sloyan, Siena Agudong, Alison Thornton, Josie Totah, Amber Midthunder, and Matthew Lillard.

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