Cheap Carrie (Special Edition) (DVD) (Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, John Travolta) (Brian De Palma) Price

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Customer Reviews of Carrie (Special Edition)

Here's to the Devil with false modesty...;)
Released in 1976, "Carrie" is a disturbing horror film that's generously fueled by psychological tension and religious iconography. Unlike the decade's other two occult works, "The Exorcist" and "The Omen," this is not a tale about the Devil's chicanery. Although it overlaps ominous images of Christ with the raging feminine hormones of teenagers, the film actually decrys the tragic reality of school bullying; as an underrated form of child abuse, this so-called "rite of passage" involves a youth culture so cruel and thoughtless that it drives its victims to suicide or murder.
Actress Sissy Spacek portrays Carrie White, a shy and lonely misfit who is constantly harrassed by her classmates. After another strenuous game of vollyball, she begins to mensturate in the girls' shower. Terrified at seeing the blood running down her fingers, Carrie hysterically cries to the other students for help. But instead, all of the girls corner her in the locker room, jeering and tossing tampons at her. From that moment on, viewers are introduced to the appalling ignorance of the high school staff; not only do the teachers refuse to take Carrie's word seriously, but even Principal Morton (Stefan Gierasch) can't seem to remember her first and last name. The only official to pity her is gym teacher Miss Collins (Betty Buckley), who realizes that she was never taught how to deal with PMS. Fiercely determined to protect Carrie's well-being, Miss Collins punishes the class with a week's worth of brutal, boot camp athletics; anyone who refused to attend detention was excluded from the senior prom.
Meanwhile, behind closed doors, Carrie is tortured and chastised by her Mother (Piper Laurie), a straitlaced Christian fanatic who corrupts every passage in the Bible, blatantly accusing her daughter of being sinful. After hearing about her first period, Margaret White assumes that Carrie is inflicted with the curse of blood, and that she's tempted by the Antichrist's lust. Forcing her to pray for strength, Margaret drags her helpless daughter into a tiny closet, where a gaunt effigy of Jesus stares into a dark void of nothingness. It seems that all hope is lost for this little girl, but that mood eventually changes. Through library research, Carrie discovers she possesses telekinetic powers; whenever she gets angry or afraid, she can flip an ashtray off a desk, shatter a mirror, or make doors open and close unaided. Eventually, this is the weapon she uses to fight back against her Mother's assault.
Seeking revenge, one of Carrie's most hateful bullies, a spoiled and nasty girl named Chris (Nancy Allen), cajoles her drunk boyfriend Billy (John Travolta) to play a sadistic prank on her. On prom night, after Carrie and poet Tommy Ross (William Katt) are crowned King and Queen, Chris dumps a bucket of pig's blood on her head. Drenched and degraded, she is surrounded by a kaleidoscope of laughing spectators. In an act of murderous rage, Carrie unleashes her telekinetic anger upon the crowd. With her cold and blank stare, she showers water from a firehose, electrocutes the microphone, and engulfs the entire school in flames. In perhaps the most shocking split-screen sequence in history, this unforgettable night of terror is shot through multiple perspectives, while glowing a grisly, hellish red.
If you are seeking a horror classic for your DVD collection, I strongly recommend this film, as well as "The Exorcist," "Evil Dead," and "Nightmare on Elm Street."

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A True Horror Film
The best movie monsters have always been ones that are the most human, and Brian DePalma's powerful adaptation of Stephen King's bestseller "Carrie" features some of the most vile to ever fill the screen. Selfish, sadistic, arrogant, violent, and senseless, the teenagers that torment Carrie White (an outstanding Sissy Spacek) deserve their punishment--and more--and DePalma milks every drop of sympathy for Carrie and animosity for them possible. Unlike so many DePalma films ("The Untouchables" being a notable exception), "Carrie" builds to its climax with a natural sense of inevitability, making the tragedy that ensues all the more devastating. By now, the plot is well known; a misfit with budding telekinetic powers struggles with puberty, a cruel religious zealot of a mother (Piper Laurie), and a high school populated by representatives of everything that is despicable about humanity (or European-American culture, as none of the major players is an ethnic minority and the social commentary is rather obvious). When the full extent of her powers are realized, Carrie cleans house, sparing neither the guilty nor the innocent. (Even a well-meaning teacher ignorant of Carrie's true powers is not spared.) DePalma gives the film a dreamy sensibility, and now that the music and fashion have returned somewhat, "Carrie" does not seem as dated as it was even a few years ago. Special mention goes to John Travolta, Nancy Allen, and P.J. Soles for being so effectively rotten (their glee when slaughtering a pig is especially creepy); their villainy is far more chilling than the paint-by-numbers variety that most actors portray. And what of Carrie, herself? The film correctly leaves that up to us to decide.

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Classical
Carrie White is a bit strange. She is friendless, her mother is obsessed with worshipping god, and sin, everybody at school harrases her, and to top it all off, she gets asked to the prom by the "hottest" guy in school, which also happens to be the guy Carrie has "special feelings" for.

Now, when you mix all those things together, do you come to the conclusion that Carrie might be under a lot of pressure? Well sure you do, cause she is. And to her horror, when she and Billy or whoever it is, i forget his name, starts to dance to the school song, a huge bucket of pigs blood is poured on her.

Blood, guts, gore...not really, but during the last half hour or so, the violence is pretty strong, not too graphic, but there are some graphic scenes of violence. When a girl gets crushed by a basketball hoop thingy, and when Carries mom gets killed by knifes being stabbed in her. I am sure there are some other ones, but those are the most graphic that i Can remeber right now.

Not too sexual, but there are definatly some sexual scenes, after all, this IS stephen king we are talking about, read this book and that will be enough dose of sexuality for you for one day, guarenteed.