careera timeless story about a young girl who exacts revenge on her bullies, based on Stephen King‘s first published novel, has become one of the most recognizable horror icons in cinema. The striking image of a girl drenched in blood has stuck with people over the years. While the original movie starring Sissy Spacek since the titular character is undoubtedly a classic, the lesser-known 2002 TV movie was written by Bryan Fuller and directed by David Carson is a much more faithful adaptation of King’s original novel. Where career 1976 (and the 2013 remake) make it a much more streamlined and focused film, the 2002 film chooses to adapt aspects of the novel cut or altered in the theatrical films. Thus was born the most faithful adaptation of King’s novel, even if the film itself is a mixed bag.
The movie begins with Carrie’s (Angela Bettis) birth in her house. But Fuller goes in a different direction for his edit right after this opening scene. The opening credits show what looks like meteors—something cut (usually) from the cinema movies—that Carrie recalled as a kid, even though they were rocks in the book. This is again present in the actual plot when Carrie is sent into the house by an enraged Margaret (Patricia Clarkson). Rightly upset by her mother’s mistreatment, Carrie’s telekinesis manifests itself, causing their dining table to fall through the window. This is followed by the rain of stones that partially damage their house. It’s nice to see an attempt at adaptation keeping this in the story, if not tonally very different from the regular storyline, through very dated CGI. The stones are never really explained; they are known for being connected to Carrie and her powers. Interestingly, they are used in the destruction of her home in both the 1976 film (they were officially cut from the film, but are visible in some shots) and 2013 film. The bricks don’t add much to the overarching plot, especially when Carrie doesn’t destroy her house and instead leaves, alive in the end of this adaptation.
A more literary structure
Where the main changes come in this adaptation, compared to the others, is through the story structure. The two theatrical career adaptations (the 2013 version is almost beat-by-beat to the original) take Carrie’s core story from the book and essentially use just that. However, the book is not told from Carrie’s perspective, but is told through newspaper clippings, articles and interview excerpts of the events leading up to and from the iconic prom. Unlike the two theatrical releases, Bryan Fuller’s TV adaptation chooses to adapt this literary choice as best it can in a visual format. The opening of the film brings us directly to Sue Snell (Kandyse McClure), the character best known for trying to help Carrie after realizing her mistakes when she bullied her in an interrogation room. The film continues the trend of this throughout its run as other survivors are brought in to be questioned by Detective John Mulchaey (David Keith).
The film is told through flashbacks to show the events of what happened in the week leading up to and the night of the prom, very similar to the book. While this provided a faithful adaptation of the novel’s structure, it causes major tempo problems for the film. Feeling both rushed and bogged down in some places, it almost seems like this should have been completely restructured into a miniseries rather than a two-hour movie trying to do way too much within its running time.
The destruction of the city is finally seen
This adaptation by Fuller also gives the audience a glimpse of another unseen part of the book: Carrie’s destruction of the city. After the prom carnage, Carrie leaves everyone behind at the gym and directs her anger at the city around it. She opens fire hydrants to thwart rescue for those trapped in the prom, blows up gas stations and destroys buildings, killing many people. This includes her causing her tormentors Chris (Emilie de Ravin) and Billy (Jesse Cadotte) to crash while trying to run over her, which is the only scene to make it to the cinema films of this series. This series is nice to see adapted at least once, on a much lower budget than it should have been, but they did what they could to get the point across. Carrie’s destruction of the city that abandoned her makes sense, especially as she begins the walk home to her mother, knowing she was sadly right about that night.
This leads to the final showdown with her mother and Carrie kills her in self-defense. These last few sequences have never been faithfully adapted, and technically still aren’t, as they’re out of order in all the movies (Margaret’s death takes place before Chris and Billy’s in the book), but this is the most faithful. Where in the book Carrie is stabbed by her mother, here Margaret tries to drown her while washing the pig’s blood off her. Carrie then kills her mother in self-defense, this time true to the novel, by stopping her mother’s heart with her powers. While in the original film, Carrie sends flying utensils to essentially crucify her mother, a much more dramatic and striking image for the audience to remember. That’s where the fidelity of this adaptation ends, as in a not-so-shocking twist (this was going to be a television series after all) Sue follows her home and saves Carrie’s life, helping her leave town and start over, which is a surprising place of hope to end the movie, while the original story ends in tragedy.
A flawed film, but still a faithful adaptation
career 2002 is a bad movie. Many parts don’t feel cohesive in the story; it drags and feels rushed at the same time. But it might also be a great treat for book fans who wish many of their favorite scenes from the novel were adapted into the other films, at least for those looking to see past the film’s shortcomings. career 2002 is far from the best of the three, but the story of career is timeless and the film is still entertaining for fans. This film also has the longest running time for the carnage to date (about seven minutes!), which gives a good idea of how Carrie’s revenge is achieved.
career 2002 may not be the best movie, but it’s the most faithful to Stephen King’s original novel, and should be viewed at least once. But let this go to show that adaptations true to the books don’t always make for the best movie. A different medium calls for a different storytelling.