24. MINDCRAFT: Get cerebral with a plot involving telekinesis.
Directed by David Carson and written by Bryan Fuller, this Carrie is half frustrating network compromise and half genuinely compelling indie-actor showcase.
Let’s get right to the film’s strongest part: Angela Bettis. Coming off Lucky McKee’s May, Bettis was essentially born to play Carrie White. At 28, she was admittedly the oldest actress to step into the blood-soaked prom dress, but she brings a fierce, wounded intelligence to the role. Fuller explicitly wanted a Carrie who felt less like a pathetic victim and more like a resilient, sweet soul with a tougher core—someone they couldn’t justify executing at the end of a feature film if a series was going to follow.
Patricia Clarkson matches her beat-for-beat as religious zealot Margaret White. Clarkson wisely avoids slipping into simple caricature; her terrifying devotion feels rooted in a genuine, suffocating maternal terror. Rounding out the ensemble are a remarkably stacked pre-stardom TV cast, including Kandyse McClure making history as the first Black portrayal of Sue Snell, Emilie de Ravin as a suitably vicious Chris Hargensen and a game Rena Sofer as gym teacher Ms. Desjardin.
From a writing perspective, Fuller’s script deserves credit for actually reading the book and pulling in elements De Palma left on the cutting room floor. For example, we open with Detective John Mulcahey (David Keith) interrogating survivors like Sue and Ms. Desjardin, utilizing flashbacks that structurally echo King’s epistolary novel.
Unlike other adaptations where Carrie consciously snaps and exacts fiery vengeance, Fuller and Carson frame the prom massacre as a dissociative, shock-induced trance. Carrie isn’t aware that she’s killed 237 people; instead, she just walks home.
The ending also stays closer to the book, as characters like Norma Watson survive just as they did on the page and Margaret bites the dust via a heart attack brought on by her daughter’s panic, honoring King’s original text.
Of course, you can’t entirely escape the gravitational pull of a 2002 NBC broadcast-standards budget.
For one, the runtime stretches to a bloated 132 minutes to accommodate commercial blocks and padding, slowing the film under the weight of network pacing. Fuller himself has openly admitted that the digital special effects look downright cheap. When the film suddenly pivots into a CGI-heavy light show and exploding gym equipment during the climax, it feels less like an apocalyptic horror event and more like a Sci-Fi Channel original movie of the week.
Furthermore, the post-Columbine cultural landscape heavily neutered the prom sequence’s sheer nihilistic terror. Fearing real-world sensitivities regarding school violence, the filmmakers opted for the trance escape hatch and that infamous, jaw-dropping alternate ending: Sue Snell administers mouth-to-mouth to revive Carrie, fakes her death and sneaks her down to Florida to start a new life helping other telekinetics. That series would never happen.
I was really surprised by how much I liked this.
You can watch this on Tubi.
