Carrie

Brian De Palma cast the film in 1975 alongside George Lucas: both wanted unknowns and shared one pool of young actors. Amy Irving, who plays Sue, and William Katt, who plays Tommy, read for Star Wars too. Sissy Spacek came to her screen test with Vaseline in her hair, her face unwashed, in a sailor dress her mother made her in seventh grade, dropping a commercial for it. The real tension is formal. The prom took over 2 weeks to shoot and De Palma spread the climax across slow motion and split screen, which he later said he overused: it reminded viewers they were watching a film. In the closing graveyard scene the actor was filmed walking backwards and the footage reversed, so the walk looks wrong before anything happens. Bernard Herrmann was to have scored it but died first. De Palma used his Psycho strings as a temp track and Pino Donaggio’s score carries it; the high school is named Bates for the same reason. Spacek and Piper Laurie were nominated for lead and supporting actress, neither won. A good fit if you do not mind split screen and slow motion coming ahead of the prom horror and rewatch the climax for them. Not for viewers unwilling to sit through a long build of humiliation at home and school.