Fantastic Fest Review: Carrie

It may not feel like it, but there have already been multiple adaptations of Carrie, Stephen King’s 1974 novel about a telekinetic spree killer.

There was a 2002 made-for-TV movie, a 2013 film remake, and even a stage musical, but none of them made much of a dent, and that’s because, two years after King’s novel was first published, Brian De Palma burned his shrieking, blood-soaked film version into the popular consciousness. At this point, it’s a bold filmmaker that dares walk the halls of Ewen High School. But since Mike Flanagan has already turned three King books into movies (including the supposedly unadaptable The Life of Chuck), he was the obvious candidate to undertake this eight-part adaptation. The show starts streaming on Prime Video on Oct. 7, with the first two episodes receiving their world premiere in a special screening at Fantastic Fest.

The first sign that this is a Flanagan project is the appearance of several players from his regular ensemble – most especially the distinctive tones of Kate Siegel. She appears (from behind and with her face hidden) as the mysterious interviewer who is seemingly debriefing the survivors of the fire that swept through town. The massacre at Ewen High has already happened, and the city has been devastated by the carnage that psychic powerhouse and perpetual outsider Carrie (Summer H. Howell, Cult of Chucky, Hunter Hunter) hath wrought. The interviewer’s purpose is to find out what each survivor believes happened, and everyone has a different opinion. The most pointed pushback on her inquiry comes from Sue Snell (Siena Agudong), the one person who seems to have really known and understood Carrie.

Flanagan leans into the conventions of the previous adaptations with his version of Carrietta White, starting with her being not quite like King’s description of Carrie as overweight. The shadow of Sissy Spacek’s performance in De Palma’s version undoubtedly hangs over the casting decision, with Howell being pale and skinny, her brow furrowed from her constant fears: of her martinet mother, of not fitting in at her new school, and of the strange phenomena that seem to plague her.

Extending the novel to eight episodes inevitably means diverging from the source material, which Flanagan has done previously to varying effects. His Haunting of Hill House stands as a masterclass in freeform adaptation, something that can’t be said of his lumpen adaptation of The Turning of the Screw, The Haunting of Bly Manor. Here, much of the early buildout is in the development of the core characters, giving them all more motivation and inevitably creating a level of sympathy for them. Even Carrie’s nemesis, Chris (Alison Thornton), has a semi-tragic backstory. That increasingly makes this version of Carrie informed by questions of intergenerational trauma, with even some justifications for the actions of Carrie’s mother, religious zealot Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan). Not only does that sit at odds with the mercilessness edge to King’s early works but also turns a blind eye to his firm belief that some people are just mean.

Flanagan also starts to build out some elements that have been a mystery in earlier versions, most especially the previously wholly absent figure of Carrie’s father (Tahmoh Penikett). Prior tellings of the story revolve around the terrible parenting inflicted by mommy dearest, but Flanagan’s version updates and expands her fanaticism to include Mr. White’s right-wing politics and survivalist streak, modernizing their unsparing form of Christianity with a dose of millennialism and prepper conspiracy theorizing.

Then the hammer drops at the end of the first episode with the hints of a much bigger world, and that may become an issue. One of the most infuriating elements of King’s oeuvre is his determination to weave all his works into a giant continuity. I’ll be very disappointed if somehow this ends up connected to The Shining or The Institute or even Flanagan’s own adaptation of Doctor Sleep, an idea that is definitely hinted at.

Where his new perspective does get interesting is in the addition of social media to the equation. When Chris shoves Carrie into the shower and gets the rest of the class to pelt her with sanitary products, it’s not just mob rule in action: It’s the beginning of an online hate campaign that swirls out of control. In this, Flanagan picks up on another of King’s underlying themes, of the failure of grownups and institutions. That’s a concept set up through the kindness of Amber Midthunder (Prey) as Miss Desjardin, Carrie’s compassionate gym teacher, and amplified by Matthew Lillard as the passionately passive principal, Henry Grayle, and Tim Bagley as Mr. Morton, a misguided guidance counselor.

While Flanagan has undoubtedly added much to the story, it’s not necessarily in the big swings that could have made this a truly radical reinvention. He could have mined deeper on those elements of King’s books that have never been included or pushed on with that Rashomon-esque setup that he quickly abandons. Yet while his Carrie may not be as radical a reinvention as one might imagine as evidenced by these first two episodes, and won’t overshadow the De Palma version, Flanagan remains the unchallenged master of longform horror serials.

Fantastic Fest runs Sept. 17-24 at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar. Badges and info at fantasticfest.com. Follow our coverage at austinchronicle.com/fantastic-fest.