The first horror movie I ever watched was Carrie, the 1976 adaptation of Stephen King’s first novel. Starring Sisey Spacek as teenager Carrie White, who gets bullied and lives a tragic life with her mother while exploring her telekinetic powers, I can’t overemphasize how much the film scared me. While I was only 11 years old at the time, the movie still creeps me out to this day, and the haunting and dark story has stuck with me.
I was excited to hear that Mike Flanagan has a Carrie TV series in development at Amazon MGM Studios, as Variety reported. Given Flanagan’s impressive work in the horror genre, including his plan for his upcoming The Exorcist project, I hope that this show gets made and am interested in seeing what spin Flanagan puts on it. I think it will be great since Flanagan is a huge fan of King, as he shared in a September 2024 interview with The Hollywood Reporter. There are two main reason why I’m thrilled about a potential new Carrie show.
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Why I Think Mike Flanagan Would Make A Great Carrie TV Show
I think Mike Flanagan’s track record of creating scary TV shows about teenagers makes him the perfect filmmaker to make a Carrie TV series. Both Midnight Mass and The Midnight Club, which just might be Flanagan’s creepiest show, feature high school characters who are finding themselves, falling in love, forming important friendships, and discovering that the world around them is scarier than they thought. Since he has already proven that he can tell eerie stories about this age group, I think Flanagan would make an incredible new Carrie series. Flanagan understands that when characters are already vulnerable because they’re insecure and dealing with a lot of emotions, that creates the perfect backdrop for supernatural elements.
Another reason why Flanagan is the correct filmmaker to take this on? Religion and spirituality can be tough topics to make movies and TV shows about since they can be delicate and controversial. However, Flanagan’s Midnight Mass is a brillaint story that proves he understands how to tell a tale about religion. The hit Netflix series is about people who are loyal to their small town’s church, and when a supernatural character shows up, they are shocked but intrigued. The show features a great mix of logical and reasonable characters and those, like Bev Keane (Samantha Sloyan), who are bit more chaotic.
It’s easy to imagine that Flanagan could approach Carrie’s religious mother in a more careful and nuanced way than has been done before. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the 2013 adaptation of Carrie starring Chloe Grace Moretz, it wasn’t particularly memorable. With the right star who can play this teen character as vulnerable yet strong, the new Carrie could be even more haunting. The social media landscape has also changed high school life, and so that would have to be included in the new series.
Sure, Carrie is about bullying and the inherent cruelty of being a teenager, along with Carrie’s awe-inspiring powers. But it’s also a story about a mother and daughter who don’t see eye to eye. I’d like to see this dynamic explored more in the series. Carrie’s mother Margaret White, played by Piper Laurie in the original and Julianne Moore in the 2013 movie, is terrifying because she’s so cruel. But I’d like to know more about her and why she acts the way that she does. Carrie’s mom is similar to Bev Keane in Midnight Mass, and I’m interested to see how Flanagan would approach her.
What Should Horror Fans Know About Mike Flanagan’s Carrie TV Series?
According to Variety, Trevor Macy from Intrepid Pictures is an executive producer on the Carrie TV series, and Mike Flanagan will be an executive producer and writer on the series if it is made.
As Variety reported, the logline for Carrie is:
“a bold and timely reimagining of the story of misfit high-schooler Carrie White, who has spent her life in seclusion with her domineering mother. After her father’s sudden and untimely death, Carrie finds herself contending with the alien landscape of public High School, a bullying scandal that shatters her community, and the emergence of mysterious telekinetic powers.”
Whether horror fans are watching the 1976 movie adaptation or re-reading Stephen King’s brilliant and beloved novel, there is no doubt that Carrie is a timeless story that could use another update. Like the upcoming adaptation of King’s short story The Monkey, Flanagan’s potential Carrie TV series can introduce even more people to King’s memorable and masterful storytelling powers.
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