"She Burned Her Hands On A Cold Window!" or Audrey Rose (1977)

If there's one thing we know about the 1970s, it's that, following the success of The Exorcist, Hollywood couldn't churn out more Supernatural Child movies fast enough. Audrey Rose, although it positively reeks of post-Exorcist possession mania, is not actually a bad film. Far from it, actually. It's not excellent, but it's not horrible either. It was, after all, directed by Robert Wise, a horror legend for his 1963 masterpiece, The Haunting. Not to mention The Sound of Music and West Side Story. But, just because the movie has a few things going for it, does not mean that there isn't plenty to snark on. Behold, the poster:

Suitably creepy, I guess. I could do without the little Brooke Shields drawing above the title because it looks kind of random compared to the rest of the poster, but it's ok.

We open on a cold, rainy day, when the titular Audrey Rose and her mother are killed after their car crashes and catches on fire. Eleven years later, we are introduced to the family that we will be watching for the next two hours: Janice and Bill Templeton and their daughter, Ivy. Ivy Templeton, by the way, is one of the most irritating children I have ever seen on film. And it's not really because the character herself is annoying. Well, she is, kind of, but not especially so. No, what makes her REALLY irritating is the fact that the little girl playing her quite obviously got "acting" confused with "whining constantly and making stupid faces."

So anyway, the Templetons are enjoying a fine day of family fun in Central Park, riding bikes and feeding baby seals out of their hands and laughing gaily as they chase balloons together, and I half expect everybody to join hands and engage in a chorus of "It's A Wonderful Day For Pie." I think I just got brain diabetes from all that sugary sweetness. They're having so much wholesome fun that they don't notice the strange bearded fellow who has been stalking them wherever they go all day.

Creeptastic! They go home and Janice develops the 5,948 pictures she took of Ivy's smiling mug that day. She gazes at these pictures adoringly with a sickeningly sweet grin, and I have a feeling that, were this movie set in the present day, Janice would be posting every last one of them on Facebook. And then she would get all offended when nobody commented on them because nobody has time to sit and go through them all. Because they have lives. Ahem.

Janice goes to pick up Ivy from school the next day, and whaddya know? Bearded Man is there looking all suspicious and stuff. And then he follows them home, which is....yeah. Ivy goes on and on about some chick at school who she thinks is a big fat liar because she said she got her period already. Ivy, you're a bitch and nobody cares. Bill comes home and, as Janice gets to work making his martini like a good little '70s housewife, he visits with Ivy. Ivy thinks they should buy Janice a camera that's full of "little dinkys," and I really don't care.

That night, as Janice and Bill are entertaining some friends, Ivy has what I assume is a nightmare, but which sounds more like a hot sex dream, judging by the amount of moaning and panting going on. Janice checks up on her and Ivy tries to angle for a day off school the next day by claiming she doesn't feel well. Janice informs her that she doesn't have a fever or anything, really, to indicate that she's sick, but that she may stay home from school anyway. Because Janice is an enabler. She tries to voice her concerns about Bearded Man to Bill before she turns in for bed, but Bill is already snoring away. Men.

No matter, because Bill has already noticed Bearded Man and his creepy stalking behavior. In particular, he has noticed that Bearded Man seems to enjoy loitering outside of Ivy's school. Bill tries to complain to the police, who are all "Sorry, can't help ya." Since Bearded Man has not actually made physical contact with any of the Templetons, the police can't legally charge him with anything. So, he is free to be creepy for another day. A freedom he exercises by calling Janice at home and asking why Ivy wasn't in school, and later sending her a new purse on top of the groceries Bill brought home. Ivy thinks Bill got her the purse, but seriously, when gifts become involved, this is SUPER FUCKING CREEPY and ass needs to start being kicked, whether any laws have technically been broken or not. That night gives us the first blatant Exorcist homage shot, wherein Ivy lies in bed with her eyes open, staring blankly.

The next morning, Janice checks the mail to discover that Bearded Man has sent them a newspaper clipping containing a short biography of himself. They now know his name (Elliot Hoover), but not much else that would explain why he's creepily stalking their 11 year old. Janice and Bill discuss the clipping over lunch, which cuts awkwardly to a scene of Janice having a fainting spell in the middle of the street for absolutely no reason. Seriously, there's no explanation for it and it's never mentioned again. Because of it, Janice arrives at Ivy's school to pick her up and finds it completely empty. Running like a lunatic through the streets, she runs right into Elliot Hoover, who, quite politely, informs her that he not at all creepily helped Ivy across the street after school. Janice tears into the apartment and shakes the hell out of Ivy for following a stranger. Ivy whines and they both dissolve into dramatic bitch tears. The amount of scenery being chewed is astonishing and we're only half an hour in.

That night, Elliot Hoover calls the Templetons and begs them to let him explain himself. Yay. They agree and meet a freshly beardless Elliot at a nearby restaurant, where he tells them a long, convoluted, boring story involving psychics and shit, the short version of which goes like this: His wife and daughter (Audrey Rose) died in a fiery car crash 11 years ago/A psychic told him his daughter was still alive/He believes that Ivy is the reincarnation of her. Totally credible! This little meeting is interrupted when Janice and Bill receive a call from Ivy's babysitter telling them to come home right away because Ivy is having another sex dream nightmare. Could this have something to do with her possession/reincarnation/whatever? Could Hoover be right? THE MIND BOGGLES!

Bill meets with a lawyer friend of his to ask what can be done about Hoover and his ridiculous theories. The lawyer suggests that he invite Hoover over to the apartment and ask him a series of questions in order to get some evidence to build a case against him. Bill does so, with the lawyer hiding on the stairs as a witness. Turns out Hoover can't actually verify any of his story because all the psychics he talked to are dead or something. I dunno. I kind of checked out because it was yet another long and boring Oscar Bait monologue. He tells the Templetons about his time in India, where reincarnation is apparently a widespread belief. He also confirms that Audrey Rose's date and time of death coincides almost exactly with Ivy's time of birth.

In the midst of all this, Ivy walks out into the upstairs hallway and starts freaking out and having a flailing, screaming, waking nightmare while banging on the windows. At least, that's what it's supposed to be. Given the acting skills of this kid, it looks more like a 4 year old's tantrum over not being allowed a cookie before supper.

But, I digress. Everyone tries to calm her down, but only Elliot Hoover is successful. He calls her "Audrey Rose" and gives her a hug. This father-daughter reunion, such as it may be, calms Ivy down enough for her to be put back to bed. Bill is pissed that this guy and his charming British accent could calm her down so quickly when he could not. He starts to beat the crap out of Elliot, but stops and just tells him to get the fuck out and don't let the door hit him in the ass. Meanwhile, Janice has noticed something quite odd and troubling about Ivy. It seems she has burned her hands quite severely. When she points this out to Bill, he's all "Must have been the radiator." Janice retorts, with dramatics that would make a 1930's studio star proud, that Ivy wasn't anywhere near the radiator and that her hands were burned on the cold, rainy windows. She also points out that Ivy's nightmares always seems to occur around her birthday (death day?). Bill is like "Bitch, you's crazy," and the topic is dropped.

The next night, Ivy gives her Linda Blair impression another shot (and still fails...miserably so). Janice was smart this time and thought to put a screen in front of Ivy's window. Unfortunately, she neglected to safeguard the stairs, the tables, the lamps, the curtains, and most of the other furniture in the apartment, so Ivy instead crashes into all of those things like a little crack monkey. Bill isn't home, so when the doorman rings and informs Janice that Elliot is in the lobby, she sends him on up. He calls her "Audrey Rose" again. and Ivy makes the ugliest cry face I have ever seen on anybody, ever. Behold:

This is by far the most frightening thing in the movie, for reals. Anyway, Elliot calms her down while Janice sits in the corner and prays. When Ivy has been put back to bed, Janice and Elliot discuss just what the hell is going on here. Elliot theorizes that Ivy is in danger because of the whole "having another person's traumatized soul inside her" thing. If they don't find a way to set Audrey Rose's soul free from Ivy's body, he says, Ivy could totally die. Then he launches into another drawn out speech about the stuff he learned in India about reincarnation. Janice seems to be starting to believe.

When Bill gets home, he is none too pleased to hear that Elliot has been there again. He bitches Janice out, to which she replies "You weren't here, waah waah waah, bitch bitch bitch!" At least, that's what it sounded like to me. The level of hysterics she displays here are truly impressive. Bill decides not to argue and vows to be home more.

The nightmares and freakouts continue unabated. Elliot shows up one night in the middle of a particularly nasty episode for Ivy, and Bill goes absolutely apeshit and starts beating the fuck out of him. The two men have a hilarious brawl in the hallway while people in neighboring apartments step outside their doors and watch, looking only mildly perturbed. Elliot breaks free and barricades himself inside the Templeton's apartment. The po'po arrive and get the door open to discover that Elliot and Ivy are gone. He has taken her up to the apartment he has recently rented on the 8th floor. Hey, whatever makes stalking and kidnapping more convenient for ya. He is, of course, promptly arrested.

Which brings us to the courtroom drama portion of our tale, wherein it must be proven whether or not reincarnation exists. Because I am a total nerd, I notice right off the bat that the judge presiding over Elliot's trial is the same guy who played the psychiatrist in the episode of The Golden Girls where the girls were all pissed at each other and considering moving out. Yay for being a TV junkie! Ahem. Anyway.

While Elliot is being put on trial, Ivy has been sent to a Catholic boarding school. She and some other students are walking in a circle, chanting while some kind of big-ass snowman is being built. I have no idea what that's about, but it sort of reminds me of The Wicker Man. One nasty little snot stops chanting long enough to call Ivy a freak. Cut to the headmistress showing Janice a newspaper confiscated from a student that contains the reincarnation trial story. Oh dear. Janice keeps Ivy overnight at a hotel and they have a heart to heart. Janice wants to take Ivy home and Ivy protests because the Sylvester, the Wicker Snowman, is going to be crowned soon, and dammit, she isn't going to miss it. Uuuum....ok? They discuss reincarnation some, and Ivy waxes poetic about how awesome it would be if everyone would live forever and ever and never die. Shut up, Ivy. If that were to happen, parking spaces would disappear really fast and then Black Friday would suck even more ass than it already does. Embrace the circle of life. Anyway, they go to bed and Janice awakens in the middle of the night to find Ivy standing in front of the bathroom mirror, whispering the name Audrey Rose to herself over and over. And, ok, that is a little bit freaky.

We then segue into some more courtroom scenes, which are really boring so I'm just going to gloss over them. The main thing that happens is that the driver of the car that crashed into Audrey Rose and her mother's car gives testimony and it's really depressing. So yay for more of Ivy's new school! Their evil looking snowman is being crowned in the middle of a bonfire while the children dance and chant something about "Old Man Winter." Except for Ivy, who is entranced by the fire, so much so that she crawls right into it. The headmistress sees this dire situation from an upper story window and nearly yells herself hoarse trying to get the attention of the nun in charge of supervising the Crowning Of The Snowman. The supervising nun is in la-la land and therefore completely oblivious to both Ivy getting up close and personal with the bonfire and the headmistress yelling like a banshee about it. Somebody needs to get demoted.

Ivy is rushed to the hospital to treat her burned face. Bill is furious and asks why the hell there was a bonfire at school in the first place. Good question. Ivy whines like a little bitch and is all "Whyyyyyy did I do that Daddyyyyyyy, whyyyyyyyyyy?" The drawn out syllables are not for dramatic effect here, that's totally how she says it. Meanwhile, Janice is called to the witness stand at Elliot's trial, and her testimony boils down to that she totally believes in reincarnation and that Elliot should be set free because he is Ivy's only hope. Yay.

In light of this, the prosecution develops a radical idea. They will put Ivy under a special hypnosis in order to determine if she remembers anything from a previous life. Even though such a test has never actually been attempted before. Wow, there's NO WAY this can go wrong. Janice is vehemently opposed to this nonsense. Unfortunately, Bill has already agreed and Ivy has been sweet talked into agreeing to it as well. So, hypnosis it shall be.

Ivy is led into a room with a one way mirror with the hypnotist while Elliot, Bill, Janice, and some doctors and court officials watch from the other side. The hypnotist starts the whole "You're getting sleepy, close your eyes" bit, and it takes for freaking ever for her to finally shut her damn eyes. It goes on for so long, in fact, that I am tempted to close MY eyes out of boredom. Anyway, once she's under, she is told to revert back to her 8th birthday party. Then her 4th birthday, where she says something about her cake being homemade and then whines something incoherent. Seriously, I rewound the movie about 5 times and absolutely could not determine what she's crying about. Then she reverts to being a baby. And then, the hypnotist tells her to go back to a time "BEFORE you were BORN." That phrase is apparently this movie's answer to "The power of Christ compels you," because it repeated approximately 76,947 times. Ivy is indeed able to revert to BEFORE she was BORN, because she starts screaming and re-enacting Audrey Rose's death. Complete with choking on smoke and everything.

Seeing that this could potentially have nasty results, the hypnotist quickly attempts to awaken her. For a minute, it seems he has succeeded. However, Ivy goes right back to screaming and choking until she collapses, lifeless, onto the floor. Oops. Good job, Bill. You insisting she go under hypnosis has killed her. You know, again.

Several months later, Janice writes a letter to Elliot thanking him for taking Ivy's ashes to India. Ok, then. The camera pans over Ivy's baby pictures as Janice narrates her letter. She makes no mention of whether or not she has kicked Bill's ass to the curb after he essentially killed their kid, but that's what happened in my noodle. Roll credits.

Stay tuned for next time, when we recap the crap out of The Amityville Horror '05!

"They're All Gonna Laugh At You," or Carrie (1976)

OMG, it's a new post!! Well, sort of. While browsing through my old Myspace blog posts, some of which date back almost four years, I came across my very first horror movie review, from the ancient time known as 2006, when I was 18 and just testing my blogging skills. The review was for Carrie, that 1976 Brian DePalma classic about telekinetic fury. While Carrie doesn't exactly fit in with our "So-bad-it's-good" theme here, I figured my review deserved a better home than Myspace, so here it is. Enjoy this recap written by 18 year old me.
We begin in the ultimate teenage hell: a gym class volleyball game. Among the dozen or so girls playing in matching yellow gym suits, we get our first look at Carrie. She's easy to pick out, because she's the one being verbally berated by everybody else for sucking at volleyball.
See? One of them just hit her in the head with a baseball cap! Bitches. Carrie, apparently accustomed to such abuse, just takes it all in stride and, after another equally ill-intentioned classmate informs her that "You eat shit!", she stands for a minute looking only mildly dejected before heading off to the showers with the rest of them. And it is in the gym showers that we get our first real look at how much of a misfit Carrie is and how ridiculously bitchy these girls are.

While going about her business in the shower, Carrie, to put it delicately, gets her first Monthly Visitor. And because her mother never (and we do mean NEVER..we'll get into that more later) sat her down and told her about the facts of life, Carrie has absolutely no idea what's going on and thinks she's hemmoraging to death. So of course she absolutely freaks the fuck out and comes stampeding out of the shower screaming bloody murder (no pun intended). Seeing as how we're dealing with a bunch of unsympathetic bitches, though, what she's greeted with is this:
Yep, bitches start throwing tampons at her and chanting obscenities. The mannerly young lady pictured above is Chris Hargensen, the biggest bitch of them all, and as such, the leader of all the other bitches. We're talking Regina George from Mean Girls, only about 150% more evil. So, Carrie is cowering in the corner of the shower, with feminine hygiene products raining down on her like rice at a wedding. Eventually the gym teacher makes an appearance and stops the shenanigans, but only after an overhead lightbulb bursts, seemingly on its own (Plot point!). In the next scene, before Carrie is sent home for the day due to the trauma she just endured in the shower, the principal's ashtray mysteriously flies across the room after he calls her 'Cassie' one too many times.
See? There it goes. What the light bulb and the ashtray serve to tell us, of course, is that Carrie's got the telekinesis. She can MOVE SHIT WITH HER MIND. Only she doesn't know it yet. But she will soon and then shit is gonna go down big time. But we're getting a little ahead of ourselves. It's at this point in the movie that it's time to meet Carrie's mother.
Meet Carrie's mother. At first glance you might think she's just your average, normal but sort-of scarily religious Bible peddler. You'd be wrong. Oh boy howdy, would you be wrong. Wait until she gets the phone call from Carrie's school about what went down in the gym showers. She. gets. PISSED. "Oh sure," you're probably saying. "I don't blame her. I'd probably be pretty pissed too if I found out a bunch of high school age twats threw tampons at my kid after she got her first period in the shower." Nope. That's not what she's pissed about. No, she's mad at Carrie. For getting her period. I don't think you're quite taking the journey with me, so I'll say that again.

She's mad at Carrie. For getting her period.

And in case that's not enough evidence by itself that Momma is a bit of a nut, she starts beating Carrie with a Bible and ranting about how she must be an awful sinning harlot to have been visited by the monthly curse of womanhood, because nice God-fearing girls never have to deal with such things. Finally, she just drags Carrie into a closet, locks her in, and orders her to pray to the Scary Jesus Statue.
Christ, look at that thing. Here it is close-up:
I mean, damn! It's a wonder Carrie doesn't have more issues than she does, considering that this is definitely not the first time she's been locked in a closet and forced to pray to THAT. I mean, she's probably been locked in there with that thing since childhood. That would fuck a kid UP! I mean, Jesus....look at the eyes! They're fucking glowing!

Unfortunately, we can't stay in Carrie's closet the whole movie, so now we're back in the same Horror High School from the day before. This is very important, because this is where we the audience meet Tommy Ross.
That's him in the front, with the girlish blonde curls that were apparently all the rage for teenage boys in the late 70s. Carrie has a total crush on him. Unfortunately, his girlfriend is Sue Snell (a young Amy Irving), one of the Tampax throwers from the beginning of the movie. Incidentally, the girl behind Tommy with the red hat is Norma, best friend of Chris Hargensen and just as bitchy. Remember all this.

Now, listen carefully. Here's the deal. All the guilty tampon throwers have received a week's detention and must report to the gym every day after school for serious calisthenics. However, Chris fancies herself too good for that and downright refuses to serve her detention, for which she is suspended for a week and denied her prom tickets. Oh horrors! Meanwhile, Sue (Tommy's girlfriend) realizes what they did to Carrie was super shitty and, revealing herself to have a pretty good heart underneath it all, decides to make it up to her by having Tommy take Carrie to the prom (which by default would make Carrie a nominee for Prom Queen, since she would essentially be taking Sue's place). When Chris gets wind of this, she doesn't like it one bit. No siree. See, the way Chris figures it, it's all Carrie's damn fault that she's locked out of the prom. It's because of Carrie that she got the detention that she didn't serve. It's because of Carrie that she's not going to get to put on her stupid prom dress and dance the night away with her boyfriend. So Chris, being a bitch and all, comes up with the ultimate revenge plan, which we'll get to in just a minute. First let's see what Carrie is up to.
Reading up on her psychic mind powers, that's what she's doing. And now that she knows she's got telekinesis, she decides "Hey! I can totally kick ass and take names with just my sheer mind-force. I don't care what Momma says, I'm going to the motherfucking prom, dammit!" Well, she doesn't SAY that, but it's totally implied that's what she's thinking. Meanwhile, Chris is working on her revenge plan guaranteed to humiliate Carrie in front of the entire school on prom night.
Chris, since all her friends are on the prom committee and are pretty much at her beck and call, is gonna make goddamn sure that Carrie gets crowned prom queen. But first she convinces her boyfriend Billy (above right...yes, that's a young John Travolta) to sneak into the local pig farm and slaughter a few of the pigs. See, the plan is this. They'll put all that pig blood into a bucket and rig it in the rafters right above the spot on stage where the prom queen will be standing. That way, once Carrie is standing there all that has to be done is to pull a rope to knock over the bucket, and there will stand Carrie with the proverbial egg on her face (or blood, as the case may be), once again the butt of the joke in front of everyone. It's at this point that Chris successfully crosses the line from evil bitch into downright diabolical bitch.

But finally, prom night arrives. While Chris and Billy are off putting their evil plan into action, Carrie is at home, trying her best to get ready while her mother stands in the corner and bitches about Carrie's dress.
This is where we get the best two exchanges of dialogue in the whole movie:

#1- Momma: Red. I might have known it would be red.
Carrie: It's pink, Momma.

#2- Momma: I can see your dirtypillows. Everyone will.
Carrie: Breasts, Momma. They're called breasts, and everyone has them.

You go, girl. That line is so absurdly ridiculous I could cry tears of joy at how delightfully cheesy it is.

So after a last ditch attempt by her mother to get her to stay home ("They're all gonna laugh at you!"), Carrie tells her to shut the fuck up and hightails it out the door to go to....THE PROM. *dun dun duuuuuuuuuun*
And boy, what a prom. Nothing says memories like foil stars and disco balls made out of crepe paper. Hard to believe that in about an hour this happy scene will transform into one of pure horror and panic. Incidentally, I know it's kind of hard to tell from this picture, but there's enough hideous examples of 70s promwear here to keep you entertained for hours. Hideous as they are though, at least they're better than the two or three strips of fabric girls usually wear to prom these days. Embrace the 70s, girls. You'll stay a lot warmer.

Anyway, Carrie seems to actually be enjoying herself for once. She doesn't yet know that Chris and Billy are under the stage with a well placed rope, waiting for the right moment to strike. She doesn't know that there's a big bucket of pig blood over the stage and that very soon she'll be the most humiliated she's ever been in her entire life. Right now she's just enjoying a nice dance with Tommy. Meanwhile Sue is making her way over to the prom to check how things are going and make sure Carrie is having a nice time. It's a good thing she isn't there yet though, because if she were she would have seen this:
And that would have just been really awkward for everybody.

But alas, tis time! Tis time to crown the prom king and queen! Yay! Are you ready? I am! And I know Chris sure is.

So, like we all know, Carrie and Tommy are announced as the winners. They make their way to the stage amidst thunderous applause and take their places on the Stage of Tinfoil Stars. It is the calm before the proverbial storm.
But Sue, from her spot near the back of the stage where she's watching, notices the rope connected to the bucket. She tries to tell one of the teachers and is kicked out of the gym for her trouble, just a second before The Moment. The moment this whole entire movie leads to. The moment immortalized on every single piece of memorabelia connected to this film. The moment the blood drops.
Absolute silence reigns in the gymnasium. All you can hear is the clatter of the bucket as it hits Tommy in the head and knocks him unconcious. And then that bitch Norma starts to laugh and point, like the bitch she is. We see things entirely from Carrie's point of view, and in her mind EVERYONE is laughing at her, not just Norma, and her mother's words ("They're all gonna laugh at you!") and the things that were chanted at her in the gym shower run in a continuous sound loop and then...Carrie snaps. Girl has reached her breaking point, and who can blame her? This is the culmination of years of abuse from her classmates from kindergarten until right this moment. This is the absolute last straw, and she isn't going to take it anymore. This time they've gone too far. So, she decides to put her telekinesis to good use and LET THE BITCHES HAVE IT!
Oh yeah. She is PISSED. These bitches are going DOWN! Chris, unfortunately, has already escaped, but she'll get hers later, don't you worry. Now the once happy prom has turned into a scene of absolute pandemonium. Furniture is flying everywhere, the doors are locked, things are on fire, the sprinkler system is on, and people are dying everywhere. Whatever Carrie can throw at people with her telekinesis, she does. And when she's finished, she calmly walks right past the destruction and dead bodies and strolls serenely out the gym doors and away from the blazing school. On her way home, Chris and Billy pass by her and try to run her over with their truck, but evidentally they didn't get the memo about her powers, because she totally causes the truck to flip over and crash, killing both of them.

So anyway, once Carrie arrives home, as if she hasn't had to deal with enough shit tonight to last her the rest of her life, she finds that Momma is waiting for her behind the bathroom door. With a big-ass kitchen knife the likes of which wouldn't be seen again until 2 years later in John Carpenter's Halloween.


Apparently, she has decided that Carrie is a filthy sinner who should never have been born, and tonight is the night she is to be disposed of. Carrie uses her powers one last time, to do...um....this:
Hey! Just like the Scary Jesus Statue! Symbolism rocks! And speaking of rocks, tons of them start raining down on the house for reasons unexplained in the film but which make much more sense after you've read the book or seen the remake starring Angela Bettis, which we'll have to do another time. Anyway, all you need to know is, rocks are crushing the house to smithereens and Carrie drags Momma's body into the closet with her. You remember, the closet with that fucking scary statue. And there she meets her untimely demise. Death by a combination of falling rocks and the gaping stab wound Momma gave her in the back a few minutes earlier. God, life really sucked for you, Carrie. I hope they at least gave you a decent headstone.
Nope.

Well, we're almost done. But what would any review of Carrie be without a few screencaps of the very end dream sequence in which Sue dreams she's putting flowers on Carrie's grave......
...only to have Carrie's fucking bloody hand come up from the rubble and scare her shitless!
Roll credits, that's a wrap!

Now, I must say that this review doesn't even begin to do this movie justice. If you've never watched it before except in clips you really need to go out and rent it RIGHT NOW! It truly is a classic in the horror genre, or in any genre really. They're just not making movies like this anymore. I mean, they're TRYING. They're trying like mad. But they're failing miserably. So, go out, rent Carrie, and I guarantee you'll be adding it to your list of all time favorites very soon.