Horror fans are marking the same milestone this week: Brian De Palma’s Carrie turns 50. The prom-night sequence—a rigged ballot, a bucket of pigs’ blood and a telekinetic meltdown—remains one of horror’s most imitated set pieces. Here is the breakdown from page to prom, built from the film’s own making.
A first novel, a $2,500 rights deal
Carrie was the first Stephen King novel to be published and the first to be adapted into a feature film. In a 2010 interview, King said he was 26 years old at the time and was paid just $2,500 for the film rights, adding that he was fortunate to have this happen to his first book.
The prom opened with two pop songs
Pino Donaggio composed the score for Carrie. He also scored two pop songs, “Born to Have It All” and “I Never Dreamed Someone Like You Could Love Someone Like Me”, with lyrics by Merrit Malloy for the early portion of the prom sequence. Katie Irving performed them.
Spacek showed up in a seventh-grade sailor dress
De Palma’s first choice for the title role was Betsy Slade, who had received good notices for Our Time. Determined to land the part, Sissy Spacek backed out of a television commercial, rubbed Vaseline into her hair, left her face unwashed, and arrived for her screen test in a sailor dress her mother had made her in the seventh grade, with the hem cut off. She was given the part.
A tiny budget shaped the mayhem
United Artists accepted the second draft but allocated De Palma a budget of only $1.6 million, a small amount considering the popularity of horror films at the time. The budget eventually rose to $1.8 million, and certain scripted scenes were omitted from the final version, mainly due to financial limitations.
The prom queen win was rigged
During prom, Chris and Billy hid under the stage while Norma and other conspirators switched the ballots to ensure Carrie won the Prom Queen title. As Carrie stood onstage with Tommy, finally beginning to feel accepted by her peers, Sue realized the plan and tried to intervene. Miss Collins spotted Sue, thought she was plotting a prank, and threw her out.
The blood came from a farm
Chris and Billy broke into a farm and slaughtered pigs to drain their blood into a bucket, which they placed above the school’s stage. They doused Carrie in pigs’ blood before sneaking out, and the empty bucket hit Tommy on the head, knocking him unconscious. As Norma laughed, Carrie hallucinated that everyone was mocking her, sealed the exits telekinetically, and attacked the students with a fire hose, injuring several and killing Norma.
The final shot used Spacek’s real hand
The last scene, in which Sue Snell reaches toward Carrie’s grave, was shot backwards to give it a dreamlike quality. It was inspired by the final scene in Deliverance. Rather than let a stunt double perform the scene underground, Spacek insisted on using her own hand, so she was positioned under the rocks and gravel; De Palma said the crew had to bury her, and he had her husband Jack Fisk do it.
Critics kept the prom in horror history
On Rotten Tomatoes, 94% of 78 critics’ reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.3/10. The site’s consensus calls Carrie one of the most memorable and disturbing prom scenes in history. Roger Ebert called the film an “absolutely spellbinding horror movie” and an “observant human portrait”, and The Guardian later labelled it a masterpiece.
Which of these Carrie details do you still bring up—the switched ballots, the pigs’ blood, or Spacek’s buried hand? Tell us your own favourite fact from the prom.
Facts from Wikipedia: Carrie (1976 film), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Film images from TMDB. This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.