CARRIE’S BLOOD BATH
They’re all going to laugh at you!” promises teenage Carrie’s cruel mother as she sets off to prom in Brian De Palma’s 1976 adaptation of Stephen King’s novel. As much as audiences might hope the shy high schooler (Sissy Spacek) will get her happy ending, it’s not meant to be. Crowned prom queen and standing in virginal white on stage, in front of her peers, a tear of happiness trickles down Carrie’s face… before a bucket of pig’s blood slops from the rafters above, baptising her in gore and triggering a vengeful display of her latent telekenetic powers.
One of the last scenes of the film to be shot, this hellish prom was created on a soundstage at Culver Studios (where Citizen Kane was shot) using the same cheap materials the students might have used in real life: crêpe paper, foil and cardboard. Production designer – and real-life husband of Spacek – Jack Fisk not only created the silver-star-spangled space (that really, mistakenly, went up in flames during pyrotechnics), but was tasked with bucketing his missus with blood. (That pail that falls on Tommy’s head later was actually a KFC-style bucket painted to look metal.)
Standing on a ladder above her and co-star William Katt, Fisk had one take only for the drop of Karo syrup mixed with food colouring over only one of two dresses for the low-budget shoot. Carrie’s bias-cut dress was made by Rosanna Norton to differentiate her from the other kids who wore frilly, fussy costumes found at a wedding gown store that was going out of business and needed to off-load its bridesmaid dresses and tuxes. And though Fisk poured expertly, the combo of sugar and hot lights meant
that Spacek’s arms kept sticking to her sides during the long hours of shooting from multiple angles.
Lobbing a red filter into the mix to amp up the carnage, De Palma used split-screen to show Carrie’s telekenetic intention and its violent result. And he ambitiously asked his crew to deliver complex crane and dolly shots in order to convey Carrie’s dreamlike state that shifts into something brutally catatonic. For the couple’s romantic first dance, a circular dolly track was constructed around a rotating platform for Spacek and Katt to dance on, while camera operator Joel King spun around them in the opposite direction so fast that when the three-minute shot was completed, he couldn’t get off the floor for dizziness. That wasn’t the only ailment during the shoot – actor P.J. Soles (playing Norma) had her eardrum bust by a full-bore firehose to the face.
The on-screen carnage was worth it – the moment became instantly iconic and Spacek was nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars the following year. Bloody good stuff. JC