This week’s edition of The King Beat is a bit different than my previous columns, and it’s in respect to the loss of a significant figure in Stephen King history. This past Saturday, it was reported that Piper Laurie – who famously played Margaret White in Brian De Palma’s Carrie and did voice work for the Twilight Zone adaptation of the short story “Gramma” – has passed away at the age of 91. In tribute to her remarkable talent, this week’s feature is entirely dedicated to the legacy of Carrie.
Reflecting on the classic film’s deleted prologue, how Piper Laurie ended up landing her iconic role, and the 10 year anniversary of the 2013 remake, this feature is packed full of Carrie goodness, so read on!
Lawrence D. Cohen Describes How Carrie Was Originally Supposed To Begin, And Explains Why The Scene Was Scrapped
There are few opening sequences in horror history more impactful than the beginning of Carrie – featuring the titular introverted teenager being ridiculed and abused by her classmates while experiencing her first period in the school showers after gym class. Within just a few minutes, it tells you everything you need to know about a majority of the film’s most important characters. It’s so perfect that it’s hard to think of the movie starting any other way… but that just makes the story of the disastrous original opening all the more interesting.
This week, screenwriter Lawrence D. Cohen participated in a Picturehouse 441 webinar discussing his time working behind the scenes on Carrie, and it was while talking about sequences that didn’t make the final cut that he discussed what was originally planned as the film’s first scene. Cohen’s script began with a flashback that is featured in the book where a young Carrie White approaches a sunbathing neighbor and inquires about her breasts – demonstrating an interest in female maturity. Witnessing this encounter, Carrie’s mother Margaret scolds her harshly and drags her back inside their house, resulting in the eponymous protagonist’s first psychic incident: stones raining from the sky.
Recounting the scene, Lawrence Cohen said that Sissy Spacek (then in her mid-20s) played the much younger Carrie for the sequence, which he felt was an odd choice, but that was just the tip of the iceberg:
The biggest one was the opening prologue, which was the rain of stones. And Brian [De Palma] kept that to the very end, so it was shot on the last day and the last night. And it had nothing but problems. In addition [to other issues], Brian chose, somewhat perversely, to use Sissy [Spacek] playing herself at the age of five or six – which was a strange idea, but it was the least of the problems when all was said and done.
The biggest problem, according to the Carrie screenwriter, was the look of the “rain of stones” on screen. The crew made attempts with both small rocks and big rocks, but nothing properly worked, and the production apparently caused a disturbance in the neighborhood where they were shooting. Cohen continued,
The stones didn't work. They were making an incredible racket; the neighbors were complaining and called the police, and it looked like crap. I mean, it's a hard scene. Nobody's figured it out. You're either in little pebbles or in monster big things that are falling. And either way, it's a disaster. So it disappointed me that it was gone, but on reflection, starting the movie right off with the volleyball game was fantastic. You were in it. So it turned out to be a sort of happy coincidence.
Clearly it’s a good thing that this prologue didn’t work – though it’s a shame that the deleted footage isn’t available in the special features of home video releases.
Remembering Piper Laurie’s Phenomenal Turn As Margaret White In Carrie And How She Got The Role
Only three actors have ever received Academy Award nominations for their work in Stephen King adaptations, and, sadly, one of them passed away this past weekend. Piper Laurie had a remarkable career, her filmography including brilliant work like The Hustler and Twin Peaks, but arguably her greatest turn was in Carrie – playing the zealous, abusive and psychotic matriarch Margaret White. This week, Constant Readers everywhere are mourning her passing, and in the wake of her death, Lawrence Cohen shared the story of how she came to play one of her most memorable characters.
The screenwriter spoke about the casting of Carrie during this week’s Picturehouse 441 webinar and recounted that an effort was required to get Piper Laurie to star in the film. Said Cohen,
Piper [Laurie] was a more difficult situation [than with Sissy Spacek] because we knew we needed somebody great. We had talked about Louise Fletcher, who the year before had made [One Flew Over The] Cuckoo's Nest, and I thought she could certainly do it, but we'd seen what was in her bag of tricks already. The roles were not the same, but they were somehow very alike in their abusive nature in particular. So someone suggested Piper, and Piper hadn't worked in 15 years.
Cohen exaggerated a tad bit there: in 1966, Piper Laurie had a role in the TV movie The Long Hunt of April Savage starring Bruce Dern, but she took a long career hiatus in the wake of that project. It was ultimately a 10 year break in total that ended when she starred in Carrie.
The screenwriter recounted that Laurie moved across the country with her husband at the time, film critic Joe Morgenstern, and she opted to live a more domestic-centric life. When she received the script for what would be the first ever Stephen King adaptation, she didn’t think much of the work, but she was convinced to at least meet with Brian De Palma. Cohen continued,
She had had enough of Hollywood; she married and moved to New York State and for 15 years she lived like a housewife and didn't do any other work whatsoever. And she got the call for Carrie, and they sent her the script, and she was very frank that it didn't interest her and she didn't think it was very good. And her husband, who was a film critic, said to her, '[Brian] De Palma's got a wicked sense of humor and a satiric sense of humor. And I think you really ought to meet him. You really ought to just go in.'
It’s funny, as the legacy of Carrie is filled with stories like this. Stephen King famously threw away his early work on the book, and the only reason he continued working on it is because his wife, Tabitha King, rescued it from the wastepaper basket. Similarly, Laurence Cohen explained during the webinar that he wasn’t initially inclined to take a meeting with producer Paul Monash, but his ultimate decision to do so is what led to him to work on the beloved horror film and launch his career as a screenwriter.
According to Lawrence Cohen, Brian De Palma did most of the talking during his meeting with Piper Laurie, and apparently his anxiety about the encounter was a plus. He explained his vision for Carrie, and when an official offer was put forth after the conversation, Laurie decided she was ready for her Hollywood comeback:
She came into New York and met with him and he was, I think, anxious about meeting her. And he talked the entire time. She never read, she'd never said hardly anything. She relaxed because he had taken on the nervous part of the experience. She got back to upstate New York where they were living, and her agent had called to say that she'd been offered the role. And that's how that happened, which is just as weird as anything else.
The rest is history. Margaret White in Carrie, alongside Sissy Spacek’s titular character, is a legend in the horror genre, and Piper Laurie’s performance is extraordinary. She was a brilliant talent, and we here at CinemaBlend extended our thoughts and condolences to her family, friends, and fans.
On Its Tenth Anniversary, The 2013 Carrie Remake Remains As Forgettable As Ever
If it hasn’t already been adequately suggested above, allow me to state it bluntly here: Brian De Palma’s Carrie is a special film. It holds an important position in pop culture history as the seminal Stephen King adaptation; both the shower and prom sequences are incontestable examples of iconic cinema; and Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie are perfection.
Acknowledging this, director Kimberly Pierce’s remake of Carrie – released 10 years ago this week – remains as baffling as ever.
When a remake is developed, the ideal reason is because there are filmmakers who have a special new vision to apply to the story, and while this approach can certainly backfire (I’m looking at you, 2019’s Pet Sematary), it’s a hell of a lot better than regurgitation. It’s not good, but the TV movie remake of Carrie from 2002 at the very least tries to incorporate the epistolary construction of Stephen King’s novel to make it stand apart from Brian De Palma’s work. The 2013 remake doesn’t even do that.
One would like to judge Kimberly Pierce’s adaptation on its own merits, but the reality is that it too strictly invites comparisons to the 1976 film because it’s a practically identical telling of the story. Talented a performer as she is, Chloë Grace Moretz is badly miscast in the lead role, and while Julianne Moore gives her all, her Margaret White stands in the shadow of Piper Laurie’s. It’s the opposite of special, and 10 years of perspective has done nothing to change that.
Recommendation Of The Week: Carrie
Were you expecting something different? The goal with these King Beat recommendations is to offer suggestions that you can read in the week before my next column, and while that will typically see this section populated by short stories and novellas, I’m making an exception this time. Plus, Carrie is one of Stephen King’s shortest novels and certainly easy to devour in seven days or less.
Given that King puts out a new tome every year, I can understand if some self-professed Constant Readers have never gone back to read the author’s first published book, and I hope this suggestion to do so ends up being a catalyst. With a structure reminiscent of one of King’s most beloved works (Bram Stoker’s Dracula), it offers a completely different experience than any of the adaptations, and it provides fascinating insight into the characters and their motivations (particularly in the case of Sue Snell).
That wraps up this week’s edition of The King Beat, but be sure to come back here to CinemaBlend every Thursday for my latest column, and in the meantime, you can read about the full history of Stephen King adaptations with my Adapting Stephen King series, and you can learn about all of the projects currently in the works with my Upcoming Stephen King Movies and TV guide.
