‘Carrie’ Review – A Bold Reimagining That Lacks Bite

Samantha Sloyan, Summer H. Howell | Courtesy of Liane Hentscher/Prime

Everyone knows the story of Carrie White: a tale of kindness in the face of cruelty; a wholly preventable tragedy. It’s a story that’s been told time and time again, adapted first as a theatrical film in 1976, then as a television film in 2002, and again as a theatrical film in 2013. Now, Mike Flanagan gives Carrie the full eight-episode miniseries treatment in Prime Video’s newest adaptation. But can King’s relatively short novel sustain an eight-hour-long series? That’s the question. And the answer is both yes and no. While Prime Video’s Carrie successfully updates the story for a modern audience, tweaking the novel’s setting and remixing some of its themes, Flanagan’s additions to the story prove to be more of a mixed bag. There’s some interesting stuff here, but it often gets buried underneath the show’s attempts to turn Carrie into something it’s not.

After her father’s sudden death, sheltered teen Carrie White (Summer H. Howell) finds herself thrust into the Hell that is modern-day high school, forced to navigate a world she’s wholly unprepared for. Carrie’s life quickly turns upside down when a viral video of a moment of genuine terror and confusion spreads across the school, turning into a scandal that threatens to rip the entire community apart. Leading the crusade against the school’s rampant bullying is Carrie’s mother, Margaret (Samantha Sloyan). Desperate to protect her daughter, Margaret swears to do whatever it takes to put an end to the bullying and shield her daughter from what she sees as the evils of the modern world. But that’s not what Carrie wants. All Carrie wants is a normal life as a normal teenager—a desire made all the more complicated by her emerging telekinetic powers and penchant for finding trouble.

A Bold Reimagining of a Classic…

If you’ve ever read Carrie or seen any of the previous adaptations, then you know where this is all headed—the end-of-year prom, where Carrie’s life, and the town itself, changes forever. But the more extended journey Prime Video’s Carrie takes to get to that climax delivers a variety of unexpected twists and turns that delight and frustrate in equal measure. On the one hand, Flanagan’s modernization of the material works exceedingly well. Sure, it can come across a bit too much like a generic YA drama at times, but his exploration of all the ways modern high school life can be even more horrific than what King first imagined in the ’70s adds a lot of heft to the idea of Carrie’s life being entirely upended by the actions of her peers. After all, what’s more horrifying to a teenager than going viral online for the worst possible reason?

Similarly, the added time given to the story’s supporting cast makes them feel less like cardboard cutouts and more like real, living people who are trying to do their best. Surrounding Carrie with people who, at minimum, want to understand and help her adds some extra weight to the story. Especially when you compare their actions to those of Carrie’s mom. The show expands Margaret’s backstory too, turning her from a wholly unsympathetic religious extremist into a somewhat more understandable one. She’s still horrific in her abuse of Carrie, but Flanagan gives her just the smallest hint of humanity. You can see that she does genuinely want the best for Carrie; it’s just that her worldview leads her to go about it in all the wrong ways. It’s a change that may irk longtime fans, but one that works quite well for the story Flanagan’s telling.

…That Almost Entirely Lacks Bite

On the flip side, however, this new Carrie ultimately loses sight of what makes King’s original tale so effective. While the extra time benefits Carrie’s characters and overarching themes, it really hampers the thrust of the narrative. What once was a taut piece of horror now feels far more middling. It’s funny that people always say Stranger Things seems inspired by Stephen King’s work because Flanagan’s new Carrie miniseries feels far too “Stranger Things meets X-Men” for its own good. At times, Carrie comes across as strikingly similar to Eleven—a girl with mysterious telekinetic powers, desperately trying to learn how to control them. There’s even a power training montage that feels straight out of Stranger Things’ second season, and it all feels just a little too silly. The show tries very hard to make it work, but it never quite escapes that pervasive hokey feeling.

Similarly, the show expands Carrie’s world by linking her experiences to those of a variety of historically persecuted women. It’s a notion that King’s novel alludes to, but never really explores. And, perhaps, there’s a good reason for that, as despite Flanagan’s best efforts, it all feels a bit too on-the-nose for a story that’s already borderline too on-the-nose. Even worse, it leaves the show feeling stretched thin, crumbling under the weight of a larger story it’s not equipped to tell. And with this expansion comes a dip in the tension and horror. The show ultimately loses a lot of the novel’s bite and comes across as more of an X-Men pastiche than a truly horrifying Stephen King adaptation. It’s almost like Flanagan wants to set the show up for future seasons it doesn’t need, all at the expense of the story being told in the here-and-now.

Final Thoughts

Still, there’s a lot about Prime Video’s Carrie to like. Howell and Sloyan are absolutely breathtaking as Carrie and Margaret, easily carrying the series on their shoulders while giving their characters a palpable sense of realism. Put simply, the show simply doesn’t work without Howell. She is Carrie, and the work she does here easily elevates even the show’s less successful moments. Sloyan, too, turns Margaret into a character you can really sink your teeth into; one whose perspective you can understand even as she does truly abhorrent things.

By and large, Flanagan’s attempts to update the story work pretty well, particularly when he leans on all the ways modern life can be truly hellish for a teenager. There’s some deeply effective critiques of the way we as a society treat each other, and our penchant for turning mean and uncaring at the drop of a hat. It’s just a shame that in its search to expand the material, the show loses sight of what makes Carrie so effective. Overall, it’s a decent show that’s let down by some questionable pacing and a finale that knocks the wind out of the narrative’s sails.

Carrie premieres October 7th on Prime Video.