Script To Screen: “Carrie”

To me, the most interesting relationship in the 1976 movie Carrie, screenplay by Lawrence D. Cohen, novel by Stephen King, is the one between Carrie and her mother Margaret. The latter is one sick, demented soul.

IMDb plot summary: Carrie White, a shy, friendless 17 year-old girl who is sheltered by her domineering, religious mother, unleashes her telekinetic powers after being humiliated by her classmates at her senior prom.

Check out this mother/daughter exchange:

INT. WHITE KITCHEN

As Carrie and Margaret finish dinner. Silence ­ punctuated only by the slight DRIZZLE outside and occasional flashes of THUNDER and lightning. Then:

MARGARET
You haven't touched your pie, Carrie.

CARRIE
It makes me have pimples, Momma.

MARGARET
Your pimples are the Lord's way of chastising you.

CARRIE
Momma?

MARGARET
Yes?

CARRIE
Momma, please see that I have to start to get...
to try and get along with people.

MARGARET
Whatever are you going on about? Have you been
showering with the other girls again?

CARRIE
I... I've been invited to the prom.

MARGARET
(a foreign language)
Prom?

CARRIE
It's next Friday, and
MARGARET
It's that teacher, the one that called.
She'll be sorry.

CARRIE
Momma, please see that I'm not like you. I'm
funny, I mean, the kids think I'm funny. I don't
want to be. I want to try and be a whole person
before it's too late to ­

Margaret throws her cup of tea in Carrie's face. It's cold, wet, sticky. But Carrie holds herself in, she's going to be in charge this time. She takes a deep swallow and continues:

CARRIE
(continuing)
His name is Tommy Ross, and he's a very nice
boy. He's ­

MARGARET
No!

CARRIE
-- promised to stop in and meet you before, and ­

MARGARET
(overlapping)
-- I said no!

CARRIE
-- have me in by midnight. I've ­

MARGARET
(shaking her head now; uncontrollable)
No, no, no ­

CARRIE
-- accepted.

Pause.

Margaret's shaking with fury, trembling.

Carrie wipes the stringy wet hair from her forehead.

CARRIE
(continuing)
I've accepted, Momma. I have accepted.
MARGARET
The closet.

CARRIE
No.

MARGARET
After all you've been taught ­

CARRIE
Everyone isn't bad, Momma, everything isn't
sinful.

MARGARET
Go to your closet and pray. Ask to be forgiven!

CARRIE
You'll like this boy, he....

And Margaret at this word shifts gears and winds up ­ in the grip of a weird babble.

MARGARET
Boys. Yes, boys come next. After the blood, the
boys come. Like sniffing dogs...

CARRIE
Momma... ­

MARGARET
...grinning and slobbering, trying to find out
where the smell comes from, where the smell is.
That... smell!

CARRIE
Please stop...

MARGARET
Yes, in cars. Yes. I know where they take you in
their cars. Roadhouses. Music. Whiskey. I've
seen. it, all right. Oh, yes.

CARRIE
Momma, you better stop.

MARGARET
You're not going. CARRIE
I've already said I would, Momma.

MARGARET
Then say no. Say no. Or we'll move.

CARRIE
No.

MARGARET
We'll move from here and you'll never see that
boy again.

A gust of wind causes the window to blow open. Margaret gets up and starts toward the window. Carrie is silent, watching herself being shut out.

MARGARET
(continuing)
The rain's coming in.

CARRIE
Momma, sit down.

MARGARET
I'm going to close the windows.

CARRIE
I'll get them. Please sit and talk to me.

MARGARET
No.

Margaret continues toward the kitchen window to close it.

Carrie knits her brow, and flex, the window closes.

Margaret whips around, facing Carrie.

CARRIE
I'm going, Momma. And things are going to change
around here.

Flex.

The SOUND of a window shutting in another room.
MARGARET
Witch!Flex.

Another window.

MARGARET
(continuing)
It's Satan's power. First he entered your father,
carried him off...

CARRIE
He ran away, Momma. Everyone knows that.

Flex.

A couple of windows.

MARGARET
The devil tempted him.

CARRIE
He ran away with a woman, Momma.

MARGARET
All men are the same. That boy, he's like all the
rest, he doesn't ­Flex.

The rest of the windows in the house THUNDER shut.

CARRIE
I don't care. He asked me to go. And I'm going. I'm
going, Momma. You can't stop me.

Here is the scene from the movie:

Compare the script to the scene and identify any differences between the two. Why do you think they made the changes they did?

One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script To Screen, a series on GITS where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.

For more articles in the Script To Screen series, go here.