Hello! Happy Friday! Man, am I glad it’s Friday! Today I’m posting something a little different. The Stephen King Project.

I’ve mentioned it in my monthly recaps that I’ve started a Stephen King Project reading all his books. For the past 5 months… which was longer than I anticipated, I’ve been reading Carrie. Finally last weekend I finished it and today I’m here to recap all my thoughts on the book and the three adaptions that were made!

These won’t be in my normal review style, I’m just going to do point form.

The Book (1974):

• From the first few pages the reader really gets a glimpse of who Carrie is.
• The backstory is starting to take shape and the reader can see things starting to form to create the story arch.
• The way King writes from the outside perspective looking in on his characters is creepy, yet so fascinating and very well done.
• We’re getting to meet our antagonists in which King writes them with so much humanity that the reader almost feels sorry for them.
• We’re slowly, slowly starting to see some rising action; we learn about Margaret White, Carrie’s mother, a little bit more, but it just doesn’t feel like enough.
• We now see where our antagonist gets her personality from; King is developing things really well.
• The rising action is really starting to ramp up and the reader is completely hooked. Carrie is starting to come out of her element and it’s like sunshine, so wonderful to see.
• The plot is definitely starting to thicken… literally!
• Carrie is becoming her own person and it’s really good to see.
• We’re now entering the rising action and the reader’s senses have been heightened.
• The back and forth jump in points of view are really growing the anticipation for what’s to come.
• Having the main action told in third person by a witness is quite eerie.
• The reader is finally getting to the meat of the story; the way it’s told from different perspectives is highly engrossing. Not only being in Carrie’s mind, but hearing it from outsiders who witnessed it all is incredibly haunting.
• The plot is slowly entering the falling action, but it wouldn’t be surprising if there’s something else up King’s sleeve.
• One last final crescendo to the plot leaves the reader curious how this will all end, other than dead.
• The plot has wound down, of course with one final kick to the horror gut.

Final thoughts: The overall story was good and creepy. King kept his readers invested and entertained throughout, even when they started to waver he found a way to bring them back in. He used different writing approaches and that really helped him with keeping things interesting and scary. His ending was a little boring, but it tied up ends so it worked.

The Movie
Carrie (2013):

• A modern day Carrie, although Carrie looks like she could take place in the 70s, the rest of the world has phones and you know, modern technology.
• At first the girls don’t look to be very mean, but then when they start to film her and post it online, wow that’s mean.
• The movie does follow the book well, and at times the movie does a better job just because it has the medium to expand what the book did so well.
• The camera angles start off really weird and seem to try to be creepy, but they’re just off putting.
• It’s unclear who is supposed to be scarier Carrie or Margaret. Carrie’s mother Margaret is incredibly scary and her scenes are so well done, Carrie is more creepy than anything else.
• The major scene of this film were shot well and portrayed the book well. It was creepy, with just the right amount of gore that worked well.
• The ending to this film wasn’t any better than the ending to the book. It felt so Hollywood, much like this whole movie, but the ending was just so clichéd and unsatisfying.

Carrie (2002): 

• The film starts after everything is said and done and they are interviewing Sue Snell about the events. This film is almost in her point of view and it’s really good to see this part of the story. They also decide to show interviews of the other survivors and it really brought the story full circle, and felt really close to the book.
• The girls are definitely mean and the acting is very of the time.
• The girl who plays Carrie is good, but it feels so over the top. Her character looks almost insane, it’s not that fun to watch. She has her good moments, but when it gets too much it’s bothersome to watch.
• The weird camera angles and special effects were a bit much and they use music a lot to make things scarier than they really are and for the most part it really works, but it also feels cheesy.
• This film really drags things out, running just over 2 hours even though it’s only 5 days before prom, it feels like weeks.
• The acting between Tommy and Carrie’s characters are so awkward it’s really hard to watch.
• The whole lead up to the big moment takes close to twenty minutes to build up to and it’s supposed to make it scarier but it really drags out the film even more.
• This film ends with some open ended plots, and it just doesn’t feel over at all.
• Overall, really slow, but it does follow the book quite well. The actors don’t really have chemistry with one another so the acting feels really wooden, but this version added things the 2013 version left out that really worked. This is worth it if you’ve read the book, and you’re invested in the story.

Carrie (1976):