This Free-to-Stream and Wildly Underrated Stephen King Remake Was Almost A Full TV Series
Last week, our Managing Editor Josh Korngut penned my favorite editorial of the year thus far. Responding to the recent news of Mike Flanagan’s new take on Stephen King’s Carrie, Korngut questions why fidelity to the source material never translates one of the text’s most pointed descriptions—Carrie’s appearance. Carrie White, as written, is a fat girl, though the many adaptations on stage and screen never seem to care all that much. Flanagan’s take is poised to repeat the same depiction we’ve always seen when his limited series for Prime Video arrives next year.
What’s most interesting is just how regularly Carrie has been adapted. There’s Brian De Palma’s original, of course, and the much-better-than-you-remember sequel. Kimberly Peirce helmed a remake in 2013, though the less said about that film, the better. And then there’s an oft-forgotten 2002 adaptation. Written by Bryan Fuller and directed by David Carson, 2002’s Carrie premiered on NBC. Not only that, but the goal was exactly what Flanagan is doing now—springboarding into an entire Carrie series. If you’ve forgotten the made-for-television adaptation, you can catch it streaming free now on Tubi.
Per Tubi: An adaptation of the classic novel. Carrie, a girl with telekinetic powers, teaches her classmates a deadly lesson when they humiliate her at prom.
If nothing else, Carson’s Carrie has a phenomenal cast. They’re not book-accurate, but Angela Bettis (May) is exceptional, and she’s regularly matched by Patricia Clarkson as her maniacal, devout mother, Margaret White. Otherwise, it’s the Carrie you’ve seen and read before, just a little sanitized for a wider television audience. Mostly, at least, until the ending. At the end here, Carrie White is revived by Sue Snell (Kandyse McClure) and the two collude to fake Carrie’s death and flee to Florida. I live in Florida (please don’t come here).
The series never came to be despite strong viewership numbers when Carrie premiered. It’s common knowledge among King aficionados, though the thrust of the series would have been akin to that one episode of Stranger Things everyone inexplicably hates. Carrie would travel around the country, grappling with guilt while meeting other telekinetics just like her. It’s a fascinating case study in what could have been, and for fans of the novel, it is largely more faithful than De Palma’s original.
With Carrie streaming free on Tubi, do you have any plans to check it out? Let me know if you do over on Twitter @Chadiscollins. If you don’t, I’ll pop out some rubble in your dreams to scare ya.
Categorized:News
