Book v. Movie: Carrie

[NSL]

If this "series" is going to be successful at all, I think it's about time we bring Stephen King to the party.

Carrie was one of his earliest successes, and brought his name to the forefront of horror literature. Reading the book, you get a very vivid mental image of what is happening, and it almost haunts you as you sleep. I got chills reading the book, and rank it among my favorites of all-time.

The movie does a great job of bringing that mental image that you had, out of your mind, and onto the screen. There were moments where I was watching exactly what I had envisioned, and it scared the crap out of me. Almost of all movies from his books are like that, but this one did it from beginning to end.

I can't choose which one I would prefer, because they're both classics, but I think I'd rather re-watch the movie, than re-read the book.

 

[klunderbunker]

I've always been fascinated by psychokenesis so this was always one of my all time favorite books if not #1. I'll take it over the movie pretty easily. The movie is solid as well, but the book is told from several perspectives which give you a wide range of ways to see thing from which always adds in a nice change of pace. Carrie's insanity and ultimate breakdown affected so many people and the book allows you to see the same way they do which isn't something you can get in a film that often.

 

[X]

Yeesh, this is a tough one. On one hand you have Carrie, another classic from King (one that I don't think is one of his very best however), on the other you have Brian De Palma's commercial breakthrough after years of making very good suspense films (Sisters is a classic film), Carrie was the movie that really made Hollywood put it's attention on De Palma as a filmmaker. Unfortunately he didn't achieve that kind of box-office success again for several years, but he continued to make brilliant suspense films (Blow Out and Body Double are both marvelous).

Obviously the book is more in-depth and complex, which is almost always the case with a book being adapted to film (especially in King's case), but honestly I'll take the film over the book. I couldn't read Carrie a dozen times and not grow tired of it, but I could watch the film a hundred times and never get tired of it. It's one of the great horror films of the 70s, and a film that scared the everloving piss out of me as a seven year old kid. Carrie's mother scared the hell out of me to say the least. Everything about the film is a classic, a true masterpiece of the horror genre. As much as I enjoyed the book, I enjoy the film more.