Brain De Palma has had an inconsistent career. In the beginning, during the 1960s, he made underground films that were mostly aimed at showing his deftness with a story and a camera. He also began hanging around with fellow filmmakers Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas. These young agitators wanted to steal the film business from the conservative old guard, and each helped the others any way he could. De Palma introduced Robert De Niro to Scorsese; Coppola helped get funding for Spielberg and Lucas; De Palma and Lucas jointly cast Carrie and Star Wars; De Palma even helped Lucas write the introduction to Star Wars. These directors saw themselves as the saviors of cinema.

It’s easy to think of De Palma as the lightweight of the group. In fact, most film critics will tell you he shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same breath. But while it’s true that Coppola, Spielberg, and Lucas made hundreds of millions of dollars for Hollywood, it’s also true that De Palma made a fortune for his bosses, with such films as The Untouchables, Scarface, and Mission: Impossible. Scorsese’s films have never made much money, but at least he’s developed a reputation for being one of American film’s most gifted auteurs; while De Palma, who can be equally gritty and artistic, has been lambasted by critics for everything from his love for Hitchcock to his violent misogyny. I see De Palma as a brilliant filmmaker who doesn’t care very much about critics or producers. Instead, he has a vision of film that is personal and very consistent, and it began its mature phase with Carrie.

Carrie (Sissy Spacek) is a teenage girl who is tormented by her classmates. Her life is worse at home. Her mother (Piper Laurie) is a crazy, proselytizing Christian who shows up at the other kids’ houses preaching Hellfire and damnation. She constantly chides Carrie for her shortcomings, and punishes her mercilessly. Carrie has her first menstrual period while at gym, and the other girls throw Kotex and tampons at her, back her into a corner, and chide her for being so stupid as not to know what’s happening to her. Sue (Amy Irving), one of the most popular girls at school, feels guilty about Carrie’s mistreatment and talks her boyfriend, Tommy (William Katt), into asking Carrie to the prom. Chris (Nancy Allen), Carrie’s nemesis, who has lost her prom privileges because of her taunting of Carrie, cooks up a plan to humiliate Carrie. The plan is to get Chris’s boyfriend, Billy (John Travolta), to help her rig the king and queen election at the prom so that Tommy and Carrie win. Chris’s plan is to then disgrace Carrie at the moment of her coronation.

De Palma takes this story and fashions something operatic by creating a concept of femininity that blends Raphaelite beauty with the mythological power of the harpies and a good dose of female phobia. The beauty comes at the beginning. In some of the most striking camerawork in all of film, De Palma takes us in slow motion into the steamy confines of a girls’ locker room. As the camera pans through the crowd, we see gorgeous visions of nude girls, some drying off and getting dressed, some playing boisterously. The camera slowly rolls into the shower, where Carrie is alone, languorously washing her body with a bar of soap. Pino Donnagio’s gorgeous music swirls. De Palma spends a good minute and a half just examining Carrie’s body. Suddenly, she begins to menstruate and is shocked by the blood. Not knowing what’s happening to her and fearing the worst, she runs to the other girls for help. In the blink of an eye, the sweet girls turn into a taunting flock of harpies, and we don’t know whether to feel antipathy or sympathy.

The crush of meanness is terrible in its power. I understand why some would see all this as a misanthrope’s view of women, but I think it is something deeper. I think De Palma finds the power of women frightening and bewildering. In almost all of his scary films, from Sisters (1973) to Femme Fatale (2002), De Palma shows the power of women to decimate the male psyche and unleash the bloody torrents of hell. We can all play amateur analyst and try to figure out where these feelings came from. I find it even more amazing that he chose a sweet, 5’ 2" Texan to unleash those forces.

Sissy Spacek was 27 years old when she took the role of Carrie White. Yes, she becomes a force of nature at the end, but she also brings incredible tenderness to the role. De Palma took a gamble casting her. Spacek had received good notices for her starring role in Terrence Malick’s cult flick Badlands in 1973, but she hadn’t done much since. Her portrayal of Carrie is abundant with nuance, showing every possible emotion, from fear to anger to sublime happiness. And, miracle of miracles, even though she was starring in a horror film, she was noticed by her peers and nominated for Best Actress by the Academy.

De Palma gambled on the rest of the cast as well. Piper Laurie, also nominated for an Oscar for her role in Carrie, was the only actor in the cast with a long résumé. But even she hadn’t made a film in 15 years, when she won the Oscar for her role in The Hustler. As for the rest, Carrie was the first film for Amy Irving, Betty Buckley, and P.J. Soles, and the second film for John Travolta, William Katt, and Nancy Allen. Each did a splendid job, especially Travolta as a goofball, and Allen as one of the meanest kids you’ve ever seen. As the old saying goes, when one actor is good, thank the actor; when all are good, thank the director. All the actors in Carrie are good.

MGM’s DVD is perfectly adequate, though I wish a little more care had been taken with the film transfer. The remastered sound adds some depth and spaciousness, but the original mono isn’t bad. The film’s most recent re-release, Carrie: The Special Edition, includes several extras, including more than 80 wonderful minutes of recollections by the cast and crew. If you have any interest at all in Carrie, those minutes will fly by. Also included are the trailer, a clip from the Broadway musical version (!), a photo gallery, and a short essay on the history of King’s novel and the film.