Stephen King’s Carrie is incredible – but Amazon’s new series left me furious

Stephen King once wrote: ‘I never got to like Carrie White,’ about the titular teen terror of his debut novel

And while I greatly respect Mr King, I’m afraid I have to disagree with the Master of the Macabre on this because I bloody love Carrie. 

I adore the raw prose and simmering tension of the book; I love the cruelty of Brian De Palma’s film adaptation; heck, I even like the bombastic spectacle of the Chloë Grace Moretz-led remake. 

So imagine my excitement when I heard Mike Flanagan, the king of the horror mini-series (And the Stephen King adaptation), was working on his own reimagining of this tragic tale. 

Basically, I was giddier than a teenager with a hot date on prom night, but after watching all eight episodes, I’m afraid this is a dance that sadly ends in bloodstained disaster. 

But I’m skipping to the gore-soaked end; let’s start with the story.

Carrie White is back with a brand new attitude (Picture: Robert Falconer/Prime)

Based on King’s book, this new adaptation drags Carrie White (Summer H. Howell), bloody and screaming, out of the showers of the 1970s and into the 2020s, reimagining her as a homeschooled recluse who’s forced out of seclusion when her father dies and made to attend high school, much to the chagrin of domineering mother Margaret (Samantha Sloyan). 

Unsurprisingly for anyone who’s read the book, the meek and awkward Carrie quickly becomes a target for the school’s bullies led by the mean girl alpha Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton). However, when Carrie discovers she has mysterious telekinetic powers, everything changes.

Yeah, it’s the same plot you know and love, reenvisioned through a 21st-century lens.

The show makes several changes to King’s original work (Picture: Robert Falconer/Prime)

As a result, I knew the show would take creative liberties with the material, and sure enough, the show does make some pretty major changes to King’s original story. 

And look, I have no problem with adaptations and am aware that reinvention and reinterpretation are key to making stories shine long after they’ve been published.

Some of these changes really work, most notably Carrie is much nicer than in King’s version, who was a pitiable but unlikable lead prone to branding her bullies ‘whores’. 

Flanagan, in contrast, softens Carrie’s more unpleasant traits, which has the twin benefit of making the character someone you can stand to watch for eight episodes while also highlighting the tragedy of Carrie’s fall.

I had quibbles with this change at first, believing that ‘Book Carrie’s’ prickly edge helped underline my rather surface-level interpretation of the novel, namely that ‘teenagers are monsters’.

It helps that Howell is so good at playing Carrie. She bestows the character with a soft sadness and rage that is rather magnificent and totally works for this new Carrie White. 

Over the course of eight episodes, though, I realised the wisdom in Flanagan’s choice and Howell’s performance. They both make Carrie someone who could have been friends with Chris, who’s twisted into something dark and unrecognisable. 

This serves to allow the viewer to appreciate King’s slightly subtler point, ‘we make our own monsters’.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before (Picture: Courtesy of Prime) Chris is a more central figure than previous adaptations(Picture: Robert Falconer/Prime)

Again, Flanagan rather cleverly uses Chris – whom Thornton makes impressively mean while remaining understandable – to do this by making her the show’s other viewpoint character. 

Chris’s story runs in parallel to Carrie’s, and we see how both girls become monsters – through abuse, bullying, neglect, humiliation and the influence of parents –the only difference being that Chris’s superpower isn’t telekinesis; it’s an understanding of Instagram hashtags. 

That might sound glib, but by the end, both Carrie and Chris are both very capable of hurting people without laying a finger on them. 

And that’s a fascinating thing about this series that really worked for me: this idea that no one is born a cruel bully or a murderous psychopathic creature who shoots mind bullets; we’re born innocent, and circumstances beyond our control make us into bad people. 

But – and it’s a but so big you could see it from space – Flanagan makes a huge mistake in the final episode that spoils his point. 

Carrie’s final episode let me down (Picture: Robert Falconer/Prime)

He does something to Carrie (which I’m legally barred from explaining) that completely defangs her and undermines the tragedy of her transformation into a prom queen-shaped tornado that lays waste to her town.

I can’t lie. I was infuriated. Up until that point, I’d loved the show, but that last episode was just spoiled for me, or as I write in my notebook: ‘I think I’m taking a star away for that bad decision’. 

And again, this is a real shame because I loved everything else about the series. I thought Sloyan’s different but still unhinged take on Margaret was fantastic; I loved the supporting cast (Matthew Lillard MVP) and the show looked brilliant. 

Okay, there’s a slightly X-Men subplot going on that I didn’t really appreciate, and there’s a distinct feeling that the show is building a shared universe for Flanagan to play in later, but that’s all forgivable. 

It’s just that damned ending.

I suppose ultimately, though, there’s a grim irony in Flanagan falling at the final hurdle. King is well known for his terrible endings (If you’ve read The Stand, you know the pain), so maybe Flanagan really is the perfect person to bring Stephen’s twisted tales to life.

All eight episodes of Carrie will premiere exclusively on Prime Video from October 7.

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