Carrie (1976) by Amber S. Palmer

Carrie (1976)

Director: Brian DePalma
Screenwriter: Lawrence D. Cohen
Based on a Novel by Stephen King

The 1970’s film cult classic, Carrie accentuated the brilliance of using sound and music to create a horrific world of peer torture and the power of darkness. Carrie begins through an orchestral score showing the girls locker room as it leads to showing Carrie in the shower. DePalma gives the audience of sense of trickery because he makes extreme close ups of Carrie washing her body as if she was a sexual object. The music engages the audience into what is going on in the scene. The scene is the complete opposite of the music but that makes it all the more better. DePalma begins to unveil the story of this tortured young lady and opens the audience’s eyes to her religious freak of a mother. Her mother makes Carrie recite the bible front and back believing it will save Carrie’s soul from all damnation. DePalma has a gym scene where the only sound used is the teacher’s voice echoing throughout the gym. Just using the teacher’s voice made the scene extremely effective because the audience can understand the seriousness of the message she’s trying to get across to her students. DePalma really strengthens the relationship between the gym teacher and Carrie. Every moment Carrie and the teacher spend together he uses the same music score to show how the teacher is the mother figure Carrie should have, maybe Carrie wouldn’t have such a low self esteem. When Tommy, a handsome jock, goes to her house and convinces her to go to the prom with him all you can hear is his truck and the city. Carrie’s usage of using natural sound makes the film even creepier because DePalma sets it up like Carrie is a haunted house and the sounds you hear are like the ghosts making their presence felt. One of most skillfully written scenes was the prom scene where Carrie and Tommy are made prom king and queen. The music score that played for Carrie throughout the entire film is played as she makes her way to the stage. The score turns it to this low menacing sour when the camera goes to two of her classmates ready to pull the pig’s blood on Carrie. The score going between the auras of the scene and foreshadowing Carrie’s huge embarrassment entices the audience to see what’s going to happen. All of the music turns into this very intense beat where it races back and forth with the film up until Carrie’s splattered with pig’s blood. Then, the music slowly dies and all you can hear is the blood continuing to spill on the floor. A sick replay of one of her classmates saying, “Their all gonna laugh at you!” amongst the teachers telling her, “Sorry” and that she can trust them. Carrie goes into her telekinetic trance and the orchestra maintains a low violin mellow, which slightly goes up and down. Screams and the gym being destroyed through Carrie’s mind cover the violin melody. Carrie does a masterful job of putting fear into the audience not only because of the eerie characters and the story of a tortured girl’s powers, literally electrifying those around her, but the music introduces us to a world full of sadism and vengeance.