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Late to the Party: Carrie (1976)
It’s Wednesday, so it must be time for another edition of Late to the Party!
Today’s movie is the original 1976 version of Carrie, adapted from the Stephen King book of the same name. While it’s been long enough that everyone knows the story, seeing it is something else. It’s directed by Brian De Palma (The Untouchables, Mission: Impossible), and stars Sissy Spacek (JFK, An American Haunting) and John Travolta (Grease, Battlefield Earth).
It opens with Carrie getting her period for the first time in the girl’s locker room shower, which begins the next level of her torment as it’s pretty clear she was likely teased well before this. From there we meet her religious fanatic of a mother who locks Carrie in a kitchen closet for the crime of having a period.
The girls that ruthlessly mocked Cassie in the locker room shower have their own punishment, a week’s worth of detention that they must serve or lose their chance to go to Prom. Of course, some of them take offense at that and insist that Carrie has to pay yet again.
One of the track stars asks her to prom, not knowing the part he’s about to play in this scheme. Meanwhile, Carrie is discovering she’s capable of ‘miracles’, in the form of telekinesis. The pivotal night then comes and we’re just waiting for what we know is coming.
Carrie and her date are ‘chosen’ as the Prom King and Queen, setting her up on the stage for the dumping of the pig’s blood the lead girl and her boyfriend had set up. Covered in red, and in spite of the people who are appalled at what happened, Carrie only sees people laughing at her and lets her powers loose, locking the doors, and starting a fire. Then she calmly walks out, leaving the building to burn.
Her night isn’t finished there, as her mother saw Carrie’s power and has decided the girl has to die. She stabs her own daughter in the back and chases her downstairs where Carrie kills her mother in self defense.
It’s all too much for the young girl and her powers go berserk, pulling the entire house down on top of them and into the ground, killing them both.
Many films don’t stand the test of time, but the original Carrie stands up very well.
The outfits and hair might be dated, but the cinematography is excellent, making you unsettled even as it shows mostly mundane settings. (And, oh boy, is there a lot of slapping in this movie.)
What gives this film its legs are the themes of bullying and religious fanaticism, which are possibly even more relevant today than back when the film was made. It wasn’t the first movie about either theme, but its focus on them as the bones of the story are easily relatable.
Check back for the 4th of July to see what our writer Eric Panico thinks about The Purge!
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Movies
‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments
It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.
We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.
“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”
That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”
Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:
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Movies
‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening
Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.
Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.
Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.
Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.
Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.
The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.
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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date
Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.
Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.
These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:
According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”
Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.
Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.
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