What were a few of the differences between Carrie the book by Stephen King?!
Question:
What were a few of the differences between Carrie the book by Stephen King?
and the movie. Was it super different or similar to the book. I have seen the movie but I haven't read the book all the way thru because I'm not sure if it's worth reading. Anyone?
Answers:
It is most certainly worth reading. I read it when I was 14, 32 years ago, and it remains one of my all time favorite books, but then MOST of King's early work is on my "Hallowed Books" shelf in my bedroom.
King himself has admitted there is a depressive pall over the entire book, which he tried hard to eradicate in several rewrites before it was originally published. He says he succeeded in some ways, but if that's true, I cannot imagine how depressing it was to read in its original form.
The biggest difference between the book and the movie is this "tone". The movie is much lighter, actually comical in (early) parts. In the book, the main females are much more manipulative, working behind the scenes. In the book, Sue Snell convinces Tommy to ask Carrie to the prom, but in the movie, he asks her because she "liked his poem". In the book, Carrie's crazy mother isn't a member of a specific religion, if I remember correctly, but in the movie, she is portrayed (brilliantly) by Piper Laurie as some kind of fundamentalist Pentecostal, of the "snake handling: variety. The way she dies in the movie is very different from her death in the book.
The biggest difference is Carrie's telekinetic walk home after the pig blood and the school (and most of the teens) in flames, where she destroys most of the town on the way. DePalma just didn't have the budget for that, and I found that to be a big disappointment, but he more than made up for it with the "grabber" scene at the end, which, when I first saw it in my hometown theater, al;most made me go over the back of the seat into someone behind me's lap.
The book tells Carrie's story more through "eyewitness" reports and "newspaper articles", while the movie tells the story from many different characters' points of view..