CARRIE

   Film (1976). Red Bank/United Artists. Dir Brian De Palma, starring Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, John Travolta, Amy Irving, Nancy Allen. Screenplay Lawrence D. Cohen, based on Carrie (1974) by Stephen KING. 98 mins. Colour.

   This was the breakthrough film for a director who had worked with fantastic subjects before, notably with Sisters (1972) and Phantom of the Paradise (1974). Only borderline sf, more centrally a HORROR film, C tells of a repressed and innocent child (Spacek), just entering puberty, whose powers of TELEKINESIS awaken partly in response to the dreadful religious bigotry of her mother and specifically to brutal teasing at high school. Widely praised and commercially successful, C is pyrotechnically directed, especially in those scenes where Carrie strikes back at her tormentors. Undoubtedly impressive, the film is, however, more simplistic about its fantasy of impotent-victim-becoming-potent-avenger than was its source novel. De Palma went on to make another film about PSI POWERS, The FURY (1978).

   PN

   See also: CINEMA.