Hey, what are you wearing to prom?
Stephen King’s first published novel, Carrie, was adapted into Brian De Palma’s first Hollywood triumph, back in 1976. A remake is now scheduled for a 2013 release, to be directed by Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry), and starring Chloë Grace Moretz (Kick-Ass, Hugo) as Carrie.
The new screenplay is being written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Marvel Comics, HBOs Big Love), and will purportedly adhere more closely to King’s text.
This is bound to be a big deal, so here’s your chance to get ahead of the curve by checking out the De Palma original, which starred Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie (who both received Oscar nominations for their roles), along with other luminaries like Betty Buckley and Amy Irving, a future Greatest American Hero in William Katt, and of course a young Nancy Allen and John Travolta, who would famously team up with De Palma five years later to make the classic Blow Out.
De Palma brings all of his formalistic and Hitchcockian jiggery pokery to bear — scenes shot backwards, scenes shot in slow motion, split screens, split-diopter, and oh my goodness quite a lot of fire and blood — to tell the story visually, minimizing dialogue. The results were enthusiastically received at the time, and the film continues to influence (Quentin Tarantino has named it his 8th favorite film).
The 2001 Special Edition Blu-Ray and DVD contains the bonus documentaries Acting Carrie and Visualizing Carrie, as well as a feature on Stephen King and the writing of Carrie.
