Musty TV's Maniacal Movie Countdown - Day 31: Carrie (2026)

As per tradition I am ending this Halloween countdown with something brand new, but this time it isn't a movie. It's Mike Flanagan's Carrie TV series, currently streaming on Prime. (The last two films in this countdown are beginning to make more sense now, aren't they?)

Warning upfront: this contains some mild spoilers, so if this series is something you want to watch and be completely surprised by, please stop reading now. (But be sure to come back and let me know what you thought after you watch it!)

The 1976 version of Carrie is my favorite Brian De Palma movie, and one of my favorite movies, period. I watch it almost every year. In fact, I saw it in a theater for its 50th anniversary just a few months ago. I don't think any adaptation will ever top it.

But any complaints I have about this new series are not based in comparison. This version is not a remake of the movie. It's an adaptation that includes some aspects of the original novel the 1976 version omitted, and then adds a whole lot more on top of that.

One thing it takes from the book is the idea that this story is partially being told by survivors. Much of the book is written like an epistolary novel, so this adaptation spins off of that by opening with survivors being interviewed for some kind of video testimonial. But, frustratingly, this framing device is essentially dropped until the end of the series.

I do think it's smart to set the story now, and include what modern bullying can look like. In some ways, 1976 Carrie had it pretty good! At least when she was pelted with tampons and pads no one outside of that locker room saw it!

Summer H. Howell, who plays Carrie, is excellent. She's sweet, and awkward, and a tad annoying. And I'll say I don't have any problem with her being "too pretty" for the role, especially when her "ugliness" in the novel is simply based in her being chubby, shlubby, and acne prone. Plenty of lovely girls are bullied in life simply because they are different. 

But I will say this Carrie is not quite different enough. Yes, she's sheltered, and a little weird. But she is such a sweet and sympathetic person that I had a hard time believing she would have ever been bullied as much as she is here. And it is a little tough to watch a character suffer, get her hopes up, only to again get crushed, over and over, which is what happens in an adaptation that's eight hours long.

And for an event that takes roughly eight hours to get to, the prom scene is oddly...anti-climatic? There is no burgeoning romance between Tommy and Carrie. He takes her to the prom (on his own volition) just to be nice, they dance, there is no kiss, and then the blood happens, he's knocked unconscious, and dies. But maybe the whole scene just feels rushed in comparison (oops, I said I wasn't going to do that!) to the 1976 version and its drawn out, slow motion fueled suspense.

It is in this final episode that the show really starts to veer off into new territory. Another aspect the show retains from the book is the idea that Carrie is not the only person in the world to demonstrate such powers. So there are new characters introduced in this final episode, and developments that imply this is just the beginning of something that will connect Carrie to a larger Stephen King Supernatural Universe. Or something. Which kind of feels like it's trying to be the new Stranger Things, but when you remember that Stranger Things owed a lot to Stephen King, I guess that just means we've come full circle.

Ultimately, I didn't hate this version of Carrie. But I'm not sure we need more of it.