What I Watched -- Carrie

Carrie is one of those movies that you always hear about but have never seen. I have a bunch of those: The Godfather, North by Northwest, The Graduate, and The Bridge on the River Kwai, to name a few. I decided, for whatever reason, that it would be a good idea to watch Carrie. My goal was to watch it the weekend T was out of town so I could be good and freaked out while I was all by myself, but (a) I couldn't squeeze it in (I was busy going to Arrow Rock), and (b) it's actually not scary. So I failed on both counts. Story of my life.

Anyway, for those other people out there who haven't seen it, here's the rundown: Carrie is a poor, nerdy, sheltered girl who is tormented by her high school classmates to no end. What the classmates don't know is that Carrie, when she gets angry, can make stuff happen just with her mind. And Carrie gets her revenge when it all hits the fan at prom. Actually, the scariest part of the movie are the crazy eyes Carrie has for about the last 20 minutes. Creepy! Actually, as a general statement, Sissy Spacek is pretty awesome at being super creepy. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

There are a lot of things going on in Carrie, though. There's the issue of teen bullying, there's Carrie's super-Christian mother, there's the idea of revenge. And then there's the character of Sue Snell (played by Amy Irving), who together with Sue's boyfriend Tommy and the gym teacher are the only characters who show any compassion for Carrie - not that it works out terribly well for any of them, in the end. Somebody at LSU (with too much free time) took it upon themselves to write quite a summary of the underlying ideas.

Bottom line: see it so you know what happens. And so you can be freaked out by the creepy eyes.