If you watched Spider-Man: Brand New Day this summer and found yourself thinking, “Gee, I just wish there was another story out there featuring a trauma-stricken, telekinetic teen struggling to control her powers,” then, firstly, that’s crazy specific and really niche. But also, secondly, you’re probably going to want to watch the trailer for Mike Flanagan’s Carrie, the Life Of Chuck and Doctor Sleep adaptor’s new Prime Video series based on Stephen King‘s coming-of-age horror classic. Check it out below;
Well, this sure isn’t Brian De Palma’s Carrie, is it, folks? Or Kimberly Peirce‘s for that matter, either. While past adaptations of King’s debut novel — which follows high-schooler Carrie White (here played by newcomer Summer H. Howell) as she navigates newfound powers and persistent bullying from her peers with ultimately horrifying consequences — have leant into the horror of the book, Flanagan looks to be taking a more YA friendly approach to the source material here. And while that framing is already dividing fans online, it actually makes a lot of sense. Given Prime Video’s recent successes on the young adult front with the likes of Off Campus and Sterling Point, as well as Flanagan’s own proclivity for tackling the thorny business of adolescence with projects like The Midnight Club, it’s really not hard to see the appeal of looking at Carrie through a lens that reflects and more closely explores the realities of coming of age in the modern, terminally online world — troll Insta accounts and all.
The official synopsis for Carrie — whose cast elsewhere includes Siena Agudong, Alison Thornton, Joel Oulette, Josie Tota, Arthur Conti, Thalia Dudek, Amber Midthunder, and Matthew Lillard — reads: “Misfit high‑schooler Carrie White (Howell) has spent her life hidden away inside the walls of her home with her fiercely protective mother, Margaret (Samantha Sloyan). After her father’s sudden, untimely death thrusts her into the unforgiving ecosystem of public high school, Carrie is forced to navigate a viral bullying scandal that tears through her community, the relentless pressure and casual cruelty of the social‑media age, and the awakening of mysterious telekinetic powers that rise alongside her adolescence.”
Pitched by Amazon as a series that will leave us questioning “whether we’re witnessing the making of a hero, a monster, or something far more complicated”, Prime Video’s Carrie has all the makings of another banger King adaptation from Mike Flanagan. We’ll find out whether this one’s bloody brilliant, a bloody mess, or just, well, really bloody when Carrie starts streaming on 7 October. Anyone fancy coming to prom with us? Nah, didn’t think so…
