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Cathal Gunning
Published 8 minutes ago
Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020.
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The news that Mike Flanagan’s new take on the Stephen King classic Carrie will outdo even Brian De Palma’s iconic movie adaptation proves just how monumental this adaptation will be. Although Stephen King has written many, many novels, his 1974 debut, Carrie, remains one of his most famous works.
Written in an epistolary format, Carrie tells the tale of a bullied teenager who discovers she possesses telekinetic powers during puberty. In Carrie’s infamous climax, the titular heroine uses her powers to exact bloody revenge on her tormentors. Carrie has been brought to life on the big screen twice, first in 1976 and then again in 2013.
Director Brian De Palma’s 1976 version of Carrie helped make Sissy Spacek, Nancy Allen, and John Travolta into stars, and the box office hit remains a classic horror movie. However, although 2013’s Carrie remake was a more modest box office success, this re-imagining was criticized upon release for sanitizing the book's grim, gritty story.
Fortunately, the next screen adaptation of Carrie is unlikely to make the same mistake. In his first project for Amazon after leaving Netflix, director Mike Flanagan will create a miniseries adaptation of Carrie that is due to arrive in 2026. Flanagan previously adapted King’s novels Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep into feature films.
Mike Flanagan’s Netflix Hits Prove His Version of Carrie Will Be Scarier Than Earlier Adaptations
Image courtesy of Everett Collections
More recently, Flanagan adapted the King novella The Life of Chuck as a critically acclaimed movie that was sadly ignored at the box office. However, that project was something of an anomaly in the writer-director’s sizable canon. The Life of Chuck was a life-affirming fantasy drama, but Flanagan is known as the premier horror auteur of his generation.
From 2013’s trippy Oculus to the underrated Doctor Sleep, Flanagan has proven himself as a fine horror filmmaker more than once on the big screen. However, television horror is where his biggest hits have all arrived. During his time with Netflix, Flanagan made a string of miniseries that are among the best in the genre’s history.
While 2018’s The Haunting of Hill House balanced intense scares and tragic family drama in equal measure, 2021’s Midnight Mass was a slower, more thoughtful, and elegiac horror that prioritized poignant character drama over intense terror. That said, the devastating ending of Midnight Mass still packed an undeniable punch.
Meanwhile, 2022’s The Midnight Club saw Flanagan shift gears to adapt Christopher Pike’s series of YA horror novels. Complete with shifting POVs and stories within stories, The Midnight Club was more fast-paced and playful, but just as moving as Flanagan’s earlier shows.
2023’s The Fall of the House of Usher was another left turn, as Flanagan diverged wildly from Edgar Allan Poe’s source material to create a cartoonish, gleefully dark satirical horror that took aim at the pharmaceutical industry and the opioid crisis. Cutting, gruesome, and colorful, The Fall of the House of Usher proved Flanagan could do more than drama and horror.
Matthew Lillard’s Comments Make Mike Flanagan’s Carrie Even More Exciting
Matthew Lillard as William Afton sitting at his desk in Five Nights at Freddy's
Now, the timing is perfect for the writer-director to offer his take on Carrie. After all, while the 1976 original remains a masterpiece, De Palma’s movie has also inevitably aged in the decades since it was released. Meanwhile, the 2013 remake arrived neutered and un-scary, and has only gotten to seem more misguided with time.
Fortunately, one cast member from the upcoming Prime series has already confirmed that Flanagan’s vision for Carrie will be a fresh, original take on King’s story that doesn’t over-rely on the earlier adaptations for inspiration. Scream star Matthew Lillard, who plays Principal Gayle in the series, told BloodyDisgusting that viewers could expect a totally new take on the story.
Per Lillard, “Carrie’s brilliant… It’s three different sorts of sections. It’s the story Carrie written by Stephen King. It’s really a pure adaptation of the book [more] than the original movie was… The show’s great. It’s really fantastic. The only thing that sucks is you have to wait a year to see it, because it’s so good.”
Lillard is correct to note that De Palma’s adaptation trimmed a lot of detail and context from King’s novel, thanks to its condensed runtime. Not only that, but the novel’s epistolary style didn’t lend itself easily to traditional screen adaptation. Luckily, Flanagan is perfectly suited to this style.
Mike Flanagan’s Carrie Can Provide One Thing Earlier Adaptations Were Missing
Hamish Linklater as Father Paul Hill in Midnight Mass
As anyone who has seen The Haunting of Hill House can attest, Flanagan is a longtime master of finding original, innovative ways to approach texts for adaptation. 2018’s The Haunting of Hill House isn’t remotely similar to Shirley Jackson’s legendary novel of the same name in terms of plot, but the show still perfectly recreates the novel’s blend of psychological horror and character drama.
Similarly, the original novel’s epistolary format allows King to dive deeper into Carrie’s school, her family life, and her hometown, which Flanagan can now do with the longer runtime of a miniseries. Where earlier filmmakers were constrained by time limitations, Flanagan will be freer.
Not only that, but his extensive experience adapting works by Poe, Jackson, and even King means he is uniquely suited to the challenge of reinventing Carrie for a new generation. As such, Flanagan’s Carrie could be the best horror show of 2026 when the series arrives.
Source: BloodyDisgusting
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Do you think a new adaptation of Carrie can capture the horror and impact of the original novel and 1976 film, or has the story become too familiar?
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8 minutes ago
Some may feel the story of Carrie has been told enough times already, especially with the iconic 1976 film. However, others are excited to see Mike Flanagan's unique take and how he adapts the epistolary format of the novel in a miniseries. The longer runtime could allow for more depth and fresh takes on the characters and story.
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