The reason Carrie is still held in such high regard as a horror classic is very simple: it's all in the sheer directorial bravado. De Palma at the top of his game.
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09/25/07
Carrie (1976)
90
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:42
Fresh:38
Rotten:4
Average Rating:8.1/10
Consensus: Carrie is a horrifying look at supernatural powers, high school cruelty, and teen angst -- and it brings us one of the most memorable and disturbing prom scenes in history.
Runtime: 1 hr 41 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Synopsis: Brian De Palma's commercial breakout, based on a novel by Stephen King, helped launch a whole slew of teen-based horror films, and Carrie the blood-spattered prom queen has taken her throne in the... [More]
Starring: Sissy Spacek, Amy Irving, John Travolta, William Katt
Director: Brian De Palma
Reviews for Carrie
Top CriticUnlike other examples of the horror genre, there are classic elements of tragedy that lend this gruesome tale a compelling edge.
04/17/01
Top CriticCarrie rivals The Shining for the title of greatest ever Stephen King adaptation.
09/25/07
Top CriticThe fierce sympathy it extends to its unfashionable central character puts the film a million miles above the contemporary line in sick exploitation.
02/09/06
Top CriticNo review available.
11/15/03
It's high time for the young generation of filmgoers to stop throwing their money [away] and see what a real horror movie is.
01/01/00
De Palma's classic creep show has dark undertones about the nastiness of teen spirit, emergent female sexuality, and rabid Christianity.
03/10/03
There is little suspense or dramatic tension; everything plays out like bad melodrama or cheap exploitation.
01/01/00
Brian De Palma's Carrie is an absolutely spellbinding horror movie, with a shock at the end that's the best thing along those lines since the shark leaped aboard in Jaws.
10/23/04
Top CriticIt is sometimes funny in a puzzling kind of way, it is generally overwrought in an irritating kind of way, and once in a while it is inappropriately touching.
05/09/05
Top CriticI might be the only person in the world who thinks Brian De Palma's 1976 classic thriller Carrie (now out on DVD) is one of the most overrated, disappointing horror films of all time, but I stand behind my review, and I swear I can knock down just about a
08/02/09
... [O]ne of the best horror films of the 1970s.
06/18/08
Carrie might be a film about high school, but it was perhaps Brian De Palma's first completely mature film.
08/25/06
This 1976 thriller, about a high school outcast (Sissy Spacek) who uses her telekinetic powers to massacre the graduating class, contains a number of interesting ideas. But as with most of his films, De Palma can't keep track of them.
09/25/07
King's pulp-gothic imagination was perfectly realized on-screen in De Palma's Hitchcock-influenced manipulative camerawork
08/21/01
It’s a gripping and rousing perusal of our human souls -- an opportunity to become aware of our dark sides and meet them head on.
01/01/00
This horror classic might be the ultimate teen angst flick.
09/10/02
De Palma's Gothic thriller is at once trashy and lyrical, a nasty revenge story in which its misfit-Cinederella-like heroine (an exquisite Sissy Spacek) discovers her sexuality under the most terrifying conditions.
05/30/06
It's a simple tale, told briskly and effectively by director Brian DePalma.
09/27/02
...suspenseful, scary, and humorously cunning by turns, it boasts superb acting, excellent pacing, good production values, and...a thought-provoking premise.
09/10/01
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