Capital Celluloid 2016 - Day 267: Sat Sep 24

Carrie (De Palma, 1976): ICA Cinema, 4.10pm

Brian De Palma's films have been controversial to say the least. Feminist film collective The Final Girls present a special 40th anniversary screening of his most iconic horror film, Carrie. Tormented by a hyper religious mother and the meanness of teenage girls, Carrie develops telekinetic powers. We will debate and explore the film's complex and divisive female protagonist and the role of women in Brian de Palma's films in a post-screening discussion. The discussion will be followed by a bloody prom party to give Carrie White the send-off she deserves.

Time Out review:
Viewed in a modern context, ‘Carrie’ is a more troubling film than it might have seemed to audiences in 1976, from the opening sequence of naked teenage girls gliding around a shower room in soapy, soft-porn slo-mo, through a bizarrely extended sequence of those same girls being put through their paces on the sports field, to the climactic scene of brutal matricide. As a film about women written and directed entirely by men, it does sometimes feel distanced and exploitative, as though author Stephen King and director Brian De Palma are peeking, ‘Animal House’-style, through that locker room window, and concocting furtive adolescent fantasies about the strange creatures they see there.

But De Palma’s grasp on King’s material is never in doubt: this is a truly throat-grabbing horror movie, sporting a handful of pitch-perfect set-pieces, not to mention one of the few examples of effective split-screen. Sissy Spacek’s performance in the title role is close to flawless: she was 27 when the film was shot, but looks barely half that, and this otherworldly combination of maturity and innocence adds to the film’s unsettling tone.
Tom Huddleston

Here (and above) is the trailer.