Mike Flanagan has built a solid reputation for his work in television, especially for his fresh spins on familiar tales. Yet even the most devoted Flanagan fan must have wondered why he chose to take on Carrie, Stephen King’s first published novel, now in its fifth adaptation across movies and TV.
As it turns out, it’s a well-crafted story. While it struggles to tell the tale in eight episodes, it presents a modern-day Carrie White with new characters and twists that mostly make for an interesting and entertaining story.
Mike Flanagan Gives Stephen King’s Carrie a Timely Modern Update
The series opens with the prom’s final events already having happened. A student, Sue Snell (Siena Agudong), recounts the events and tells the interviewer that no one from the outside really knows what happened that night.
With that, Mike Flanagan and his team of directors are off, quickly taking us back to Carrie’s first days at school and the chaos that led up to that fateful prom night. It’s a solid approach, with a narrator jumping in from time to time and the interviews returning in the final episode.
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There are a couple of immediate hurdles that Flanagan has to overcome: the well-known story of Carrie and the challenge of pacing the show over eight episodes (close to eight hours) while keeping everyone interested. It becomes clear very quickly that there is to be a more modern spin on Stephen King’s Carrie.
It includes topics such as school shootings and the dangers of social media, while also introducing a twist to the well-known tale, opening up many possibilities and allowing the introduction of new characters. To his credit, Flanagan and his team keep things rolling pretty well, although a few episodes suffer from a bit of story bloat, slowing things down to a crawl.
Summer H. Howell and Samantha Sloyan Anchor the Series
Carrie White (played by the wonderful Summer H. Howell) is less shy and introverted than Sissy Spacek’s version in Brian De Palma’s 1976 film. After being locked away from the outside world, both literally and figuratively, everything feels new, strange, overwhelming, and scary.
These character “flaws” soon become the focus of the problems she faces at school, where being a kind and innocent teenager is no match for the social media-fueled, angry youth at Ewen High School (one of many shout-outs to King’s original novel).
She quickly becomes a target, and what happens over the course of half a dozen episodes will affect the townspeople, especially the high school. Those who survived, anyway.
As Carrie, Howell gives us a character we can cheer for, someone many people can relate to, including me, nodding at situations that were, in some sense, relatable. While she was excellent in the lead role, enough cannot be said about Samantha Sloyan’s performance as Carrie’s mother, Margaret White.
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As Margaret, Sloyan gives us a multi-layered performance that moves her from villain to advocate to a complete and utter mess. She is a slave to her belief in God yet questions many things as she watches her daughter evolve right before her. It’s remarkable to watch, and not an easy character to play, but Sloyan does a great job, giving the viewer a compelling mother/daughter dynamic with Howell.
There is also a solid supporting cast. Matthew Lillard (Principal Henry Grayle) and Amber Midthunder (Ms. Rita Desjardin) do admirable work as the principal and teacher who do their best. They are completely overwhelmed by the situations unfolding before them. What started as a textbook case of bullying explodes, quite literally, into angry parents, rioting students, and a staff of teachers who fall apart before our eyes.
Special mention must be made of Alison Thornton, who plays the chief bully, the easy-to-hate Chris Hargensen. Thornton makes viewers question how easily they condemn her, even as there is ample evidence to support it, while she, too, falls apart before our eyes. She is pushed by family issues and pressures that contort her into an angry, dangerous, and sad teenager.
To that point, this is one of Flanagan’s strengths in the series, as he has done in past TV shows, making characters layered and complicated. He executes that well, giving the viewer a firsthand look, or a grim reminder, of life as a teenager in high school.
Carrie’s 8-Episode Storytelling Is Powerful, Even When It Stumbles
There are some excellent, moody, and relevant song choices backing some scenes, and cinematographers Michael Fimognari and Michael Wale spend a lot of time on people’s faces, using effective lighting and shadows to show their struggle while the sound goes silent. As a viewer, you feel what they feel and are more likely to try to understand their struggle.
While Episodes 6, “Home Economics,” and 7, “Romantic Literature,” are organized chaos as the stories and plots come to a head, the final episode, “AP Physics,” is what people will remember most. It covers the carnage at the prom and its aftermath. This is one of the few things Flanagan did differently, introducing not only new characters but also a whole new discussion of telekinesis and what different people can do.
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The series is less about gore and visceral horror and more about the psychological horror that pushes people over the edge. It’s not surprising for Flanagan and, for the most part, plays well here. Still, there’s a sense that something is being held back, and the idea that the story could go on may be all the explanation we need.
Carrie is not a perfect series. There are times when it feels more like you are being scolded by a parent than taken on a journey, and the show sometimes struggles to sustain eight hour-long episodes without bloat. However, this version feels right for the world we live in. It combines the psychological horrors of high school with the idea of young people possessing incredible telekinetic powers into a story that plays with your emotions and hits home in more than one way.
Carrie Season 1 is now streaming on Prime Video.
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