As a fan of Stephen King’s work, especially from the ‘70s and ‘80s, I felt betrayed by the new Mike Flanagan Carrie series on Prime Video. But just because I have an affinity with the source material doesn’t mean Flanagan’s adaptation should be ignored.
The review embargo lifts on October 1, but despite what people might say, you are probably going to want to check out this series and just push through the rage bait if, like me, you’re a purist who can’t handle creative changes to classic literature. Summer H. Howell will wear the bloody crown this time around.
The version of Carrie has been updated quite a bit to fit the modern zeitgeist. Flanagan has said that his vision had to be approved by King, and it wasn’t so easy to get. As elaborated on in a MovieWeb interview, Flanagan was not going to make the series if King didn’t sign off on it:
“When I brought it to Stephen King — because that’s the other side of this, if Steve says no, he doesn’t want to see it happen, we’re not going to do it; I’m not about to do that in that relationship. And so when I mentioned it to him and said, ‘What do you think about Carrie for TV?’He said, ‘Well, why? Leave her alone.
She’s good, she’s done. I’d rather we focus on other things.’ But when I sent him kind of the layout of how I saw it could work, he really liked it. And he came back and said, ‘Actually, yes, I think this is interesting, and I think this could be really relevant and could be really exciting.’ And so that was when I said, yeah, we should do this. I can’t talk more about it, other than we’re in the writers’ room.
We’re having a great time, and I think we’re going to tell a story that will be surprising and impactful, very relevant to our modern society and to issues in our country. My oldest son is 14 years old, and I look at him as I’m working on this story, and think it’s important for his generation. I think there’ll be something in there that I hope will be useful to them in this world. But yeah, I’m really glad we’re doing it. I’m having a blast.”
The first two episodes of the series were recently screened at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), where Mathew Lillard made a surprise appearance, flabbergasting attendees who went crazy when they saw the star. Lillard plays the concerned principal who must deal with parental units at odds with each other because of certain campus hijinks.
Lillard said in his surprise cameo at TIFF that the series got a four-minute ovation when it screened at Fantastic Fest just days before.
So will Carrie light up a new fanbase with its canon renovation? We will have to wait and see. But if Zach Cregger can piss off die-hard fans of Resident Evil but gain twice as many fans at the same time by doing something different, tune in to Prime on October 7 to see where you fall on the subject. I think your cognitive dissonance will be more than pleasantly surprised.
Source ScreenRant.com
