The Carrie Series on Prime (spoilers).

[ScaredButUnavoidable]

Has anyone watched this??

I just finished it and really enjoyed the first 7 episodes and then like most series, the final episode is always such a let down.

The Prom scene is so infamous in the films that this was so, so disappointing. It was so rushed and underwhelming.

And then everything that followed was just nonsense really.

The producers should have just created an AMAZING, mind-blowing prom scene and ended the series there.

Or I should have stopped after Episode 7 🤣

I liked it. But then, I never read the book and barely remember the film having watched it once, 30 years ago.

The ending was clearly setting up for a further series which is irritating and grabby, and will probably be awful. But I thought the prom scene did what it needed to do. And I thought the dancing in the street bit was pretty effective. Visually striking, and such a confusing mix of horror, euphoria, triumph and revulsion. I think that will stay with me for a long time.

I absolutely loved this BUT it is not the same story as Stephen King’s book. Carrie’s mother was an utter monster in the book whereas the TV Margaret was often quite sympathetic. I know it was updated to today but the way Carrie speaks doesn’t reflect such an isolated girl - she was spunky and forthright while she was a total pariah in the book. The book describes such an intense, fundamentalist Christianity while the TV show makes them look merely odd.

Does anyone know whether US teenagers are actually allowed phones in school? Nearly all the problems could have been solved by banning them / making them go in Yondr pouches - the head (I think) said that parents needed to be able to get hold of the kids in the case of a school shooting (!) but that’s just ridiculous.

I agree about this different version of Carrie - it was so strange to see a more confident Carrie and a mother who seemed lost. I loved the development of Carrie’s character too as her exposure to the real world helped bring out some confidence in herself.

The TV Carrie reminded me a bit of Anne of Green Gables.

& doesn't she quote AoGG in the first episode at school?

(whoops meant to tag @CruCru!)

I enjoyed it, didn't hate the prom scene but hated the last few scenes🙄

The reviews ive seen all said similar - first 7 eps were good but criticised the last one.

I thought most of the changes other than that were quite good - there have been enough more accurate versions, why bother making it again at all if you are going to do the same thing?

I liked the way that Margaret was generally unlikeable but was correct in some ways- the fact that all the pupils and teachers just accepted school shooting drills and going through metal detectors every day as completely normal IS very much fucked up.

Yes! And she said that the kids having mobile phones at school and posting shit about each other on Instagram was failing them. A huge part of me nodded along with that.

BUT in the book she was so fundamentalist she wouldn’t have a TV and only listened to an ultra religious radio station. She wouldn’t have become an online campaigner.

So series 2 - presumably Sue and the remaining kids are trying to get over what happened. The government sweep it under the carpet (presumably the paranatural people somehow control the government). And Carrie pops up again.

What I liked about the series is that everyone was understandable in some way (perhaps apart from Chris’ parents). I would have been enraged in her position - her parents let her apply for a fancy college without applying for financial aid and then she got told to stop being spoiled by the guidance counsellor.

The dancing looked quite witchy. Presumably that was the point.

Yes, but that's the whole point of doing a modern version. The book was published more than 50 years ago. The Margaret of the book would have been born (assuming she was in her 40s), in the 1930s. The Margaret of this show would have been born in the 1980s. She's not the exact same character. She would have had different cultural influences growing up and through her life.

It's reflecting a change in the US and the way Christianity has been politicised and IS used by so many individuals and company through media. So many christian influencers do weaponise their religion as part of their brand. I'd recommend Yesteryear as an example of how the 'Christian fundie' of 1970s has been updated to the modern day.

It sounded bizarre to UK audiences when she kept referencing God during the rallies but I would hazard a guess that to US audiences that bit didn't really stand out at all, as Chris's mother, who was supposed to be a more norma/mainstream character also said something similar.

You may be right. I did find the references to God a bit much (probably because I am an areligious European) but maybe they wouldn’t have. In a way, I am surprised that Margaret was not more religious - in the book the Principal said he remembered her getting suspended for beating a classmate with her handbag after she saw her smoke a cigarette and the neighbour said Margaret had said her daughter was a Jezebel for sunbathing in the back garden.

I wish that Carrie had stopped Margaret’s heart. But then again, this leads to a second series.

Did any of you notice that the Principal was Stu from Scream?

I’ve just finished it.
Ok, it was loosely based on the original but still quite enjoyable. It’s TV, a little escapism.

The one thing that irked me?
The ‘Eleven’ style hands when using her powers! So overdone.

The bit I really liked about the prom scene was when she made everyone’s phones explode.

On the back of this thread, I’ve just reread the book. I hadn’t realised how old it is, it was first published in 1974 (so it’s older than I am).

I can see why the TV series was quite different (in places) to the book. In the book, Carrie had gone to school since First Grade and her mother was an utter monster - someone who would drool and rave when she got going. Looking at it with a modern eye, I’m astounded that no one at school had picked up how appalling Carrie’s home life was and got social services involved. So the TV series made Carrie’s mother (much) more sympathetic and had her homeschooled until Sophomore year.

It also made Chris far more sympathetic. In the book she was totally unlikeable whereas I often felt quite sorry for her in the TV series.

I also didn’t like the Eleven hands- way too similar.

I really liked the series but I’ve never seen any other version or read the book. I’d watch a season 2

i wasn’t sure how sue survived the electric shock?

The book is worth reading. It deviates a fair bit from the TV series (or, rather, the TV series deviates) and there’s detail in there that you don’t pick up from the show. Sometimes I had to remind myself that it was written in the mid 70s - the characters talk about buying something for $26.50 which was quite a lot of money at the time.

I am loving this so much but I love anything by Mike Flanagan and I don't care how far he goes rogue from the originals.

I'm only on episode 2 and found myself tearing up already at the guidance counsellor talking to Carrie 😢.

Agree, but their lockdown planning is totally different from ours. As in, the way the drills were shown, the shooter, just doesn't happen here.
Did think it was a bit silly how the kids had to go through scanners, but Maggie and John (? Christine's dad) could wander the corridors like it was pre nineties, but then I suppose your had to suspend disbelief, and the principal/school was probably supposed to look a bit like ones America had when the book was written.
I wondered if Emaline (?) was Katee Sackhoff's daughter, and why she was so nasty, wanting to hurt the nicest character in it, Tommy.

Yes, and the parallels with witchcraft, once you're accused, you're just guilty. At first I thought it was unlikely Maggie could go from being no tech to a content creator sensation, but it's probably actually believable-anyone born in the 80s like me went from using landlines to being on phones far too much. I agree it was great up until near the end.
If anyone is interested? I liked the Scream TV series from about 10 years ago. A horror made into a series, where you get to know the characters and move beyond the mean girl, nerd, jock stereotypes of more interesting. Would appreciate similar suggestions if anyone has any please.

I loved the book when I read it as a teenager, and loved the TV show. But I'd definitely see the show as 'roughly inspired by...' the book rather than a straight up adaptation.

I thought it was ace. The girl who played Carrie was wonderful and all the rest of the cast also. Really captured bullying in all its horror.

I'm an outlier on this one I guess, but I really liked that the final episode linked into a broader Stephen King universe. There was this secret society of people with powers (we have similarities in Firestarter, Dr Sleep etc), reference to 'Shining' as a catchall term for powers.

As a straight up adaptation of the book, sure, episode 8 didn't work. But as an opening to a broader King inspired universe show, I really liked it. There's enough in his universe that there could be multiple really good seasons around this concept. After all Stranger Things is pretty much a direct lift of a bunch of his ideas (lots of similarities with IT, Firestarter etc) and they managed to make it work for however many years.

I also liked the explicit link into witchcraft / coven. The idea of 'shining' - special powers - is used a lot in Stephen King, but in any of the books I've read he never makes the link to witchcraft which I really like.

I enjoyed it. I like the fact the characters were much less two-dimensional than usual horror characters and the originals, I liked how they developed the mother and Chris more, adds realism to it.

I really enjoyed it, yes it’s very different to the book but I liked the fact it was updated and represented a modern society much better than a repeat of previous adaptations. And the fact that we saw more of the characters good and bad traits. Chris was a villain but she was also struggling herself.

i got very confused at the end though. So Amanda was Emilines mum and wanted Carrie to die. But the ‘others’ at the prom were trying to stop her from killing Carrie? So they weren’t all together?. What about the interviewer was she supporting Carrie or also wanting her dead?

I was also confused by the interviewer, she was trying to keep the truth hidden so I assume she is on Carrie and Emiline’s side. But who actually is she?

Also, she was trying to persuade Sue to change her version of events, so did she kill Sue in the same way she killed Carrie’s mom in order to keep everything secret?