Carrie's 50th Anniversary Sparks Debate on Horror and Revenge

October marks the fiftieth anniversary of the 1976 film Carrie. Directed by Brian De Palma and based on Stephen King's first novel, the movie has been retold many times over the last five decades. A new miniseries recently premiered on Amazon Prime, adding to the recent wave of adaptations.

Silpa Mukherjee, an assistant professor of film and media studies in the Literature Department at UC San Diego, analyzed the film's lasting impact. She focuses on how the movie blends horror with humor and why audiences support a character who commits violent acts.

The central scene involves Carrie White, a shy teenager named prom queen. Bullies pour pig's blood over her from a bucket above. This event triggers Carrie's telekinetic powers, leading to a bloody revenge against her tormentors.

Mukherjee explains that the film uses musical cues to manipulate audience emotion. Director Brian De Palma borrows the stabbing refrain from Bernard Herrmann's Psycho score. He uses only the first half of the theme as a sonic cue. This creates a sense of anticipation that feels pleasurable to viewers. However, the music stops before anything truly horrifying happens. This subversion of expectations frustrates the audience and adds a layer of comedy to the horror.

The film places laughter and screaming in close proximity. Mukherjee notes that Carrie's silent scream after being drenched in blood resembles mad laughter. She references William Paul's work on modern Hollywood horror and comedy. Paul argues these genres represent opposite ends of the human experience, ranging from festive joy to the graphic violence of the Grand Guignol theatre tradition. De Palma treats these lowbrow genres with formal skill, turning excess into a playful signature.

Mukherjee categorizes the story as a rape-revenge thriller. The film uses the motif of blood to highlight women's sexual violation. It begins with classmates tormenting Carrie over her first period. It ends with the prom blood scene. The plot also features Carrie's religious mother, who reveals she was impregnated non-consensually. Additionally, the characters Chris and Billy maintain a toxic and sexually exploitative relationship. These elements serve as a commentary on rape culture in high schools, where sexual violence often goes unchallenged.

Starting this winter quarter, Mukherjee will teach a course on horror films. The class examines how the genre addresses unspeakable violence, trauma, and desire. She defines unspeakable as both personal psychological repression and governmental silencing. The syllabus includes Jordan Peele's Get Out, Guillermo del Toro's 2025 reimagining of Frankenstein, and the 1918 film Mercy, the Mummy Mumbled. The latter is a rare surviving work by Black filmmakers that functions as an echo of historical erasure and an act of archival preservation.

Mukherjee is currently finishing her first book, Cinema Contraband: The Corridor Connecting Bombay to Dubai. The text explores how legal systems suppress, tolerate, and generate criminality for state social control. Her research has received support from the Society of Hellman Fellows, the Suraj Israni Center for Cinematic Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work contributes to the interdisciplinary study of film, literature, history, and language at UC San Diego.