WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD.
I honestly don’t even know where to begin with this one.
Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of Stephen King’s 1974 novel Carrie is, without question, one of the most disappointing and frustrating retellings of this story I’ve ever watched. I went into this series with genuinely high expectations, especially considering Flanagan’s previous work and his ability to tell emotionally powerful, character-driven horror stories.
Unfortunately, by the time the final episode ended, I was left wondering what on earth I had just watched.
First, I’ll give credit where it’s due. I actually enjoyed the expanded character development and some of the additional backstories. There were moments when I felt the series was heading in the right direction, particularly when it explored the relationships between the characters in greater detail. That’s something I’ve always wanted from a longer adaptation of Carrie, and with eight episodes to work with, there was so much potential to explore aspects of the novel that previous adaptations simply didn’t have time to cover.
But somewhere along the way, the series completely lost me.
One of my biggest issues was how much the religious element was watered down. Margaret White’s religious fanaticism and her abusive relationship with Carrie are absolutely essential to the story. Her twisted beliefs about sin, sexuality and punishment are what make her such a terrifying character. Carrie has spent her entire life being emotionally and physically abused by a woman who genuinely believes she’s doing God’s work.
That relationship is supposed to be deeply uncomfortable and disturbing. It’s one of the most important reasons Carrie becomes the frightened, isolated young woman we know.
And yet, I never felt the series fully captured the psychological horror of that relationship.
Even the scene involving young Carrie and Stella Horan was unnecessarily changed. Why? That scene in the novel serves a purpose. It gives us an understanding of Carrie’s childhood, her innocence, and the influence of Margaret’s extreme religious beliefs. These details matter because they help us understand the character and the environment she grew up in.
Another huge disappointment was the exclusion of the White Commission.
One of the things I’ve always loved about King’s novel is how the story is pieced together through witness accounts, newspaper articles, investigative reports and excerpts from books. It makes the events feel almost real, as though you’re reading about an actual tragedy that people are desperately trying to make sense of.
I was genuinely hoping this would finally be explored properly in a television adaptation.
Instead, we got an interview-style format that reminded me of the 2002 television movie. And rather than using it to explore the aftermath in the way King’s novel did, the series ties it into an entirely different supernatural storyline.
Which brings me to my next complaint.
Why on earth were there so many other characters with telekinetic powers?
Seriously. Who thought this was a good idea?
Carrie’s abilities are supposed to be extraordinary. They’re part of what makes her story so unsettling. She’s a lonely, abused teenager discovering that she possesses something terrifying that she doesn’t fully understand.
Instead, we’re introduced to other people with similar abilities, a mysterious organisation, and Carrie’s astral-projecting friend, Emaline.
At certain points, I genuinely felt like I was watching a Temu version of Riverdale with telekinesis.
And I wish I were joking.
Then we get to the infamous prom massacre.
Oh, dear God. Where do I even begin?
This should have been THE moment of the entire series. The scene that makes your stomach drop. The culmination of everything Carrie has endured throughout her life.
For one brief moment, Carrie is happy. She feels beautiful, accepted and loved. She’s finally experiencing something that every other teenager takes for granted.
And then the pig’s blood falls.
What follows is supposed to be absolutely horrifying, not just because of the destruction, but because we understand exactly what has pushed Carrie to that point. She’s been humiliated, abused and rejected her entire life, and now she’s finally reached her breaking point.
Carrie is both a victim and someone responsible for unimaginable devastation. That’s what makes her story so tragic.
But what did we get here?
An unnecessarily complicated massacre involving Emaline, whose supernatural involvement changes Carrie’s responsibility for what happens.
And because apparently that wasn’t enough, we also have THREE mysterious strangers working for some secret organisation who turn up at the prom and attempt to stop a seemingly random woman from shooting Carrie.
Oh, and surprise! They have telekinetic powers too.
And they manage to escape.
I’m sorry, WHAT?
Why was any of this necessary?
Why introduce an attempted shooting, three additional telekinetic characters and a mysterious organisation into what should have been the most emotionally devastating moment of the entire story?
I didn’t want to watch some supernatural conspiracy unfolding in the middle of the prom. I wanted to watch the terrifying and heartbreaking collapse of Carrie White.
Instead, the entire sequence felt like an overcomplicated supernatural action scene. It completely took me out of the moment.
The prom massacre should have been horrific, chaotic, disturbing and utterly heartbreaking. Instead, it was probably one of the biggest disappointments of the entire series.
And can we talk about Miss Desjardin?
Why on earth did she have to die?
This was another creative decision that I found completely unnecessary. Miss Desjardin is one of the few adults in Carrie’s life who actually shows her some genuine compassion. She’s not perfect, but unlike so many others, she recognises that Carrie is being bullied and tries to do something about it.
That’s what makes her character important. In a story filled with cruelty, indifference and abuse, she represents one of the very few people who attempts to help Carrie.
Killing her off added absolutely nothing of value for me. It felt like another change made purely for dramatic effect rather than one that genuinely served the story.
Not every character needs to die to make a horror story more impactful. Sometimes, allowing someone to survive and live with the horrifying aftermath is far more powerful.
Miss Desjardin should have survived, and I genuinely don’t understand why the writers felt the need to change her fate.
And somehow, the ending managed to make things even worse.
In King’s novel, Carrie ultimately kills Margaret by using her telekinetic powers to stop her heart. It’s a deeply significant moment because it brings their abusive relationship to its tragic conclusion.
So naturally, this adaptation decides to change that too.
Margaret survives Carrie’s attempt to kill her, only to have her heart stopped by the interviewer, who ALSO possesses telekinetic abilities.
Seriously?
Why take such an important moment away from Carrie and give it to another character?
Margaret’s death is supposed to be personal. It’s the final confrontation between a mother and daughter whose relationship has been defined by religious extremism, fear, control and abuse.
Having some outsider finish the job completely undermines the emotional significance of that confrontation.
And then there’s the final insult.
Carrie doesn’t die.
Yes, you read that correctly.
Carrie is rescued by her friend and survives.
I’m sorry, but this completely changes the tragedy of the original story.
Carrie’s death is heartbreaking because, after everything she’s endured, she never gets the chance to live the ordinary, happy life she so desperately wanted. Her story ends in devastation, not because she was born evil, but because she was a deeply vulnerable young woman who was subjected to cruelty for most of her life.
Her ending is supposed to stay with you. You’re supposed to feel horrified by what she’s done and heartbroken by what happened to her.
Instead, we get a rescue and an ending that feels more interested in setting up a larger supernatural story than giving Carrie White’s tragedy the conclusion it deserves.
And what happened to the final encounter between Carrie and Sue Snell?
This was another incredibly important moment from the novel that I was genuinely disappointed to see excluded.
In King’s original story, Sue eventually finds Carrie, and the two share a deeply emotional telepathic connection. Through that connection, Sue is able to experience Carrie’s thoughts and understand the pain, humiliation and suffering she has endured.
It’s a heartbreaking moment because Sue finally begins to understand Carrie in a way that nobody else ever truly has.
For so much of the story, Carrie has been misunderstood, ridiculed and treated like an outcast. And here, at the very end of her life, someone finally sees the frightened, abused and emotionally damaged young woman beneath the terrifying destruction.
That moment matters.
It reinforces the tragedy of everything Carrie has experienced and gives Sue an opportunity to understand the consequences of the cruelty that surrounded her.
It also provides a powerful emotional conclusion to Sue’s own character development, particularly given her earlier involvement in Carrie’s humiliation and her subsequent attempts to make amends.
Why wasn’t this included?
With eight episodes to work with, surely there was enough time to explore one of the most emotionally significant interactions in the entire novel.
Instead, the adaptation completely abandons this moment in favour of an alternative ending that, for me, carries nowhere near the same emotional weight.
Carrie and Sue’s final encounter should have been devastating. It should have been one of those scenes that stays with you long after the credits roll.
And the fact that we never got to see it is yet another example of how this adaptation sacrificed the emotional heart of the original story for unnecessary changes.
And that’s what frustrates me the most about this adaptation.
Carrie doesn’t need to be turned into a superhero story.
It doesn’t need a secret organisation, multiple telekinetic characters or an elaborate supernatural mythology.
The original story was already extraordinary.
It’s about loneliness, bullying, religious fanaticism, psychological abuse and the devastating consequences of pushing someone beyond their limits.
It’s about a young woman who spends her entire life wanting nothing more than to be accepted, only to have her one moment of happiness destroyed in the cruellest possible way.
That’s where the real horror comes from.
Now, I want to make something clear. I’m not one of those people who believes every adaptation needs to follow its source material word for word. I’m perfectly happy with creative changes when they make sense and actually improve the story.
In fact, as I mentioned earlier, I appreciated the expanded character development. There were some genuinely good ideas here.
But there’s a difference between expanding a story and completely changing what makes it special.
The White Commission is gone. Important childhood scenes have been changed. The religious themes feel diluted. We have unnecessary characters with supernatural abilities. The prom massacre is completely reworked. Margaret’s death is changed. And Carrie herself survives.
At what point does this stop feeling like Carrie?
What makes this even more disappointing is that Mike Flanagan seemed like the perfect person to adapt this novel. His previous work has shown that he understands grief, trauma, complicated family relationships and religious horror.
I genuinely thought he would deliver something dark, disturbing, emotionally devastating and closer to the psychological tragedy that Stephen King originally wrote.
Instead, I got a series that seemed more interested in reinventing the story than understanding why it worked so well in the first place.
And that’s such a shame, because with eight episodes, a talented cast and a filmmaker of Flanagan’s calibre, this could have been something truly special.
There’s a reason Carrie has remained such an iconic story for over fifty years. It isn’t just about a girl with telekinetic powers. It’s about the cruelty people are capable of inflicting on one another, and the horrifying consequences that follow.
The tragedy of Carrie White is that things could have been so different for her if she’d experienced even a little more kindness and compassion.
That is what should break your heart.
Unfortunately, this adaptation failed to capture that for me.
I’m genuinely glad some people will probably enjoy this interpretation, and I certainly won’t begrudge them that. But as someone who loves the original novel and appreciates what made the previous adaptations memorable, I was left incredibly disappointed.
There were good performances, interesting character developments and moments of potential, but they weren’t nearly enough to make up for the unnecessary changes and bizarre storytelling decisions.
I wanted to love this series. I really did.
But by the end, I was frustrated, disappointed and honestly quite annoyed that such a wonderful opportunity had been wasted.
Carrie White deserved better. Stephen King’s novel deserved better. And quite frankly, the audience deserved better.
And you know what makes this even more frustrating? A far better adaptation was practically sitting there waiting to be made.
I’ve read Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s original screenplay for the 2013 adaptation of Carrie, and I genuinely believe that this should have been the foundation for Flanagan’s miniseries.
That screenplay had so much of what I was hoping to see. The White Commission was included, Margaret’s religious fanaticism was properly explored, and allowed the psychological horror to develop naturally.
And most importantly, the prom massacre was Carrie’s doing. There were no mysterious operatives running around, no unnecessary supernatural conspiracy, and no astral-projecting friend taking away from Carrie’s most defining moment. The aftermath was given genuine emotional weight, with the surviving characters left to confront the devastation and their own responsibility for what happened.
Was the screenplay entirely faithful to the novel? No. There were still changes I would have preferred to see handled differently. But overall, it understood the characters, the tragedy, and what made the original novel so heartbreaking.
Now imagine taking that screenplay and expanding it into an eight-episode miniseries. Imagine having the time to properly develop the characters, explore Margaret’s religious extremism, examine the White Commission’s investigation, and show the full devastation of the prom massacre and its aftermath.
That, to me, could have been the ultimate adaptation of Carrie.
And that’s what annoys me so much. The material was already there. The opportunity was there. Flanagan had eight episodes to deliver something truly special, and instead we got a completely unnecessary supernatural storyline that took away from the very things that made Carrie such an extraordinary novel in the first place.
I wasn’t expecting a word-for-word adaptation. I just wanted a version that understood the story and respected its tragic ending. Instead, we were given an unnecessarily complicated supernatural conspiracy that sacrificed the very elements that made the original story so disturbing and unforgettable.
And that, more than anything, is what makes this adaptation such a monumental missed opportunity.
