Some Notes on Carrie

 

I've been reading a lot of commentary regarding literary adaptations. Sometimes, its readers who feel like the new medium did not give a favorite book or franchise justice. Others, its critics doing the same or faulting the adaptation for being too much on-book and therefore uninteresting. A couple days ago, we finished the last few episodes of the new CARRIE series in one fell swoop and it was all that we imagined it should be, natural given Mike Flanagan's record of adapting things that somehow vary widely but also provide a beautiful encapsulation of the original. He did it most phenomenally with his HILL HOUSE adaptation,  as well as with subsequent projects like FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER and THE MIDNIGHT CLUB, but also with original material like MIDNIGHT MASS, which, as my husband says,  has to be the best Stephen King story not written by Stephen King.

Flanagan's CARRIE seems to expand King's universe into the modern world, complete with new ways of traumatizing the characters via social media and the internet.  The world of high school King once introduced us to in the 70s and 80s, and which de Palma captured. is under the layer of cell phones and instagram posts, complete with online rumors and school shooting drills. Carrie is just as naive, but also less sweet and shy and awkward. Margaret White is a kinder representation, but still villainous in her own way. All the villains are given roundness and dimension we don't always see in King's writing. What we get is a new creature formed over the skeleton of the original, also informed by the adaptations of the past ones. It also opens up new ways to connect the story to the King universe through things like FIRESTARTER, THE SHINING/ DR. SLEEP, and THE DARK TOWER. Not only do they mention "the shine" and possibly nefarious groups manipulating events, but there are rumors of continuing seasons. Also, the somewhat wistful pre-prom montage set to LDR's "Did You Know That Theres a Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard" was one of its most iconic moments (also the whole soundtrack is 🔥🔥🔥).

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