Brian De Palma’s adaptation of Carrie is a horror classic, culminating in one of the most iconic endings in horror movie history. Carrie adapted Stephen King’s very first novel and cemented itself as one of the very best Stephen King adaptations. King published Carrie in 1974, and it became an immediate hit. The success of the film adaptation two years later elevated King to even higher levels of success, and it set him up for a long career as one of Hollywood’s favorite writers.

Five decades later, Carrie holds up remarkably well and still has the power to shock and delight audiences. With an utterly compelling central performance from Sissy Spacek, a distinctive unsettling atmosphere, and that unforgettable ending, Carrie is also celebrated as one of Brian De Palma’s best movies. Vitally, De Palma takes one of Stephen King’s greatest books and has the confidence to tweak it a little.

Although King has been outspoken about his distaste for one or two of his movie adaptations, he has only ever spoken fondly of De Palma’s Carrie despite minor changes to the narrative and the ending. Since 1974, there have been several other adaptations, including a made-for-TV movie and television miniseries. While these also put their own unique stamp on King’s original ending, De Palma’s is still widely considered the pinnacle.

What Happens In Carrie’s Ending

Even those who haven’t seen Carrie or read the book might have an image in their minds of Carrie being drenched in blood just as she is crowned prom queen. While this may be the most eye-catching moment of De Palma’s movie, there’s a lot more to the ending of Carrie. When some of the popular kids at Carrie’s school conspire to rig the vote for prom queen, they only do so in order to position Carrie under a bucket filled with pig’s blood.

As she finally feels accepted by her peers for the first time, Carrie is completely drenched in blood. Carrie reacts to the cruel prank with stunned silence for a while. However, when she sees Norma and some other students laughing, she starts to hallucinate that the entire gymnasium is laughing at her expense, including the teachers. Carrie finally snaps, and she uses her telekinetic powers to seal the exits to the gym.

She unleashes a fire hose to cause even more chaos inside the confined space, and she eventually electrocutes some of her teachers and sets the gym on fire as she silently walks out. This presumably kills the majority of her teachers and classmates trapped inside.

On her way home, Carrie is nearly run down by Chris and Billy, but she causes their car to crash and explode, which kills them instantly. Finally at home, Carrie washes the blood off of her skin, but she is soon confronted by her mother, Margaret.

Although her mother stabs her in the back with a kitchen knife, Carrie responds by using her powers to repeatedly impale Margaret with a set of knives. With her mother dead, Carrie cowers as the house collapses in on her. The film ends with the striking image of Sue visiting the land where Carrie’s house previously stood, only for a hand to reach out of the Earth and grab her by the ankle. Sue wakes up, revealing this final moment to be nothing more than a nightmare.

The Ending Of Carrie Is Different In The Book

Carrie remains faithful to Stephen King’s novel for the most part, but Brian De Palma makes one or two changes when it suits him, particularly in the ending. In the book, Carrie’s vengeful outburst goes even further. She doesn’t just wreak havoc on her school; she also unleashes her telekinetic powers on the entire town. On her way home from the prom, Carrie severs power lines, opens fire hydrants, and even destroys several buildings, killing hundreds of people in the process. It’s possible that De Palma dialed back her reign of terror to make her more sympathetic.

The novel also has a slightly different timeline for the ending. In the movie, Carrie kills Chris and Billy before she returns home to face her mother. In the book, she uses her powers to stop her mother’s heart and then heads out again, eventually causing Chris and Billy’s fatal car crash under slightly different circumstances. The novel also has a lot more detail about what happens in the town after Carrie’s death. King writes about how the incident becomes national news, with hundreds of deaths reported.

Congressional hearings are held to investigate the potential of people with telekinetic abilities like Carrie, while the town is slowly deserted. King provides a lot of detail about the origins of Carrie’s powers, although De Palma’s movie is much more ambiguous.

King goes into scientific levels of detail about how powers can be passed down through the generations, and he shows that there are many other people like Carrie. Another detail which didn’t make it into De Palma’s movie is Carrie’s ability to communicate telepathically. She has a telepathic exchange with Sue in the moments before her death, as she discovers that she and Tommy weren’t the ones behind the prank at prom.

The Real Meaning Of Carrie’s Ending

At its heart, Carrie is a story about abuse, isolation and trauma. None of De Palma’s changes to the ending change this focus. In fact, most of them merely reinterpret King’s writing through a more cinematic lens. For example, having Margaret repeatedly stabbed with knives, as her hands are spread apart to evoke Jesus on the crucifix, reflects the religious trauma that she inflicts on Carrie

Suddenly, she bears the fruit of her abusive teachings, and this image is more powerful and thematically rich than the way Carrie stops her mother’s heart in the novel. Carrie’s murderous rampage is a violent act of revenge against the people who ostracized, belittled, and mocked her. After Carrie is bullied at school and abused at home, her telekinetic powers allow her to turn the tables on her aggressors.

This is more than a shocking or senseless bloodbath. It’s a disturbing manifestation of trauma, and the fact that innocent people are harmed in the process is also vital. Just as Carrie hallucinates the image of people laughing at her, she sweeps up her innocent classmates in her trail of destruction. This illustrates how trauma can grow and mutate if it’s never addressed.

When considering the ending of Carrie, it’s important to examine the final dream sequence, since this was never present in King’s novel. However, De Palma clearly adds this final flourish to enhance the themes of the film. The image of Carrie’s hand reaching out from the rubble of her home to grab Sue by the ankle reflects the way that her trauma lives on after her death.

Since Sue has to live with the horror of seeing her classmates die, while wrestling with the guilt of her complicity in Carrie’s torment, the cycle of trauma continues. She may have tried to make amends, but it was far too late.

How Other Carrie Adaptations End

The 2002 television movie offers Carrie a rare chance at survival, with Sue managing to revive her through mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. At Sue’s suggestion, Carrie fakes her death, and the pair head for Florida. However, Carrie’s visions of Margaret and Chris suggest that escaping the town cannot erase her trauma.

The 2013 Carrie remake takes a more ambiguous approach, as Carrie destroys her home during a confrontation with Margaret. When Sue arrives, Carrie senses her pregnancy and saves her from the collapsing house, apparently sacrificing herself. Yet the epilogue leaves her fate uncertain: after Sue visits Carrie’s grave, the headstone cracks, accompanied by an enraged scream that hints Carrie may still be alive.

The 2026 Carrie television series offers a different outcome. Carrie returns home to face Margaret, whose attempt to kill her triggers a telekinetic battle between the pair that brings the house down around them. Margaret survives by levitating the debris, but cult member Emaline arrives and takes a wounded, traumatized Carrie away.

The Carrie series then expands the supernatural mythology through Adelaide, who astral-projects and kills Margaret by stopping her heart before erasing Sue’s memories of her cult’s involvement in the prom-night massacre. Unlike the earlier adaptations, the series allows Carrie to survive while leaving the consequences of the violence unresolved.

Release Date

November 3, 1976

Runtime

98 minutes

Director

Brian De Palma

Writers

Lawrence D. Cohen

Producers

Paul Monash

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  Piper Laurie

  Margaret White

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