Source: The Conversation – UK
Warning: this article contains spoilers for those not familiar with the plot of Stephen King’s Carrie.
Amazon Prime’s Carrie is the fourth screen adaptation of Stephen King’s debut novel. Developed by frequent King collaborator Mike Flanagan (who also directed Gerald’s Game, Doctor Sleep and The Life of Chuck), this eight-episode miniseries follows the legacy of Brian De Palma’s classic 1976 film starring Sissy Spacek.
Published in 1974, King’s original book tells the story of the infamous “black prom” through a tense, tight mix of prose, fake news reports and eyewitness interviews.
Bullied teenager Carrie White, who lives alone with her religious zealot mother in a quiet Maine town, discovers that she has supernatural, telekinetic powers (the ability to manipulate matter with her mind). After being invited to the senior prom by high school heartthrob Tommy Ross, she finally has a chance to escape her mother’s influence and find acceptance among her peers. But when events at prom take a dramatic, horrific turn, Carrie’s powers are finally unleashed.
In the first few episodes, Flanagan is surprisingly faithful to King’s novel. He also usefully deepens the moral complexity behind much of the story’s events. Chris Hargensen, Carrie’s nemesis, is developed beyond being simply villainous and cold-hearted. Instead, she is shown to be as troubled and afflicted by social and parental pressure as Carrie is herself.
The performances of the central cast are excellent. Summer H. Howell as Carrie, Alison Thornton as Chris and Siena Agudong as their mutual friend Sue Snell are standouts. And Flanagan’s aesthetic flourishes are, at times, masterful. A montage in the penultimate episode set to Lana Del Rey’s song Did You Know There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd showcases the lead-up to and arrival at prom that evokes both adolescent wonderment and anxious dread at the events about to unfold.
However, Flanagan’s expansion of the novel’s events are also this adaptation’s fundamental weaknesses.
The original novel and the classic film adaptation are tightly structured and compact. The Prime mini series, meanwhile, stretches events over the course of eight nearly hour-long episodes. The novel’s brevity – it’s just over 200 pages in most editions – compounds the claustrophobic atmosphere of the intense bullying Carrie suffers, which makes the tragedy of the black prom even more acute.
Crucially, the novel and film also keep Carrie isolated from Chris, Sue and the other girls at school, whereas Flanagan depicts Carrie forming an unlikely friendship with them even after they begin bullying her. This alteration makes little narrative sense especially given that, in the novel, the prom is depicted as the climax of Carrie’s young life and a moment of burgeoning, long-deferred social acceptance.
Flanagan’s major error is in his creation of an entirely new character, Emaline (Thalia Dudek), a fellow telekinetic who negatively influences Carrie’s behaviour. Emaline encourages Carrie to not only hone and strengthen her powers but to strike back at her bullies.
To my mind, this change undermines the entire point of King’s novel and diminishes precisely why the story continues to be so powerful after more than half a century: the black prom is the moment at which Carrie finally exerts agency, control and power over her tormentors. To take that power away from her is a morally neat and misguided attempt at clearing Carrie of wrongdoing. It undermines the implication in the original novel that, perhaps, Carrie’s actions can be understood if not condoned or justified.
In a post-Columbine context where school massacres are common across the US, the implication that Carrie’s actions during the prom could be comprehensible was probably too unpalatable and divisive for the studio.
Carrie shares many similarities with King’s 1977 novel Rage (originally published under his alias, Richard Bachman). It has been permanently taken out of print by King himself after the novel was linked to several real-life high school shootings.
When seen in that context, updating these details of Carrie’s original plot allows Flanagan to approach difficult material with sensitivity. Yet, if the subject matter raises such uncomfortable questions, would viewers not benefit from a new story that, while heavily inspired by King’s original tale, makes its own unique narrative contribution to the horror genre?
Overall, Flanagan’s Carrie fails to satisfy as much as the original novel or 1976 film adaptation do, which is unfortunate, because the series shines when it is most faithful to the source material.
Flanagan shared in an interview that King’s first response to plans for a new adaptation was: “Leave her [Carrie] alone. She’s been through enough.” Carrie, and the audience, may have been better served if Flanagan had taken the author’s advice.
This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.
Ahmed Honeini is an Honorary Research Associate in American Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/16/primes-carrie-miniseries-expands-stephen-kings-story-but-weakens-its-central-horror/