The first Stephen King book ever published — the 1974 bestseller, Carrie — immediately put the horror writer on the map, and also led to it quickly becoming the first King story to be adapted for another medium with Brian De Palma’s 1976 film version. King would turn out to be a shockingly prolific writer who went on to write a staggering amount of work filled with tons of beloved, instantly recognizable characters in the decades since. Yet still — even with the likes of IT, The Shining, Pet Sematary, and so many more that have now been given multiple incarnations — Carrie stands out for how many times it’s been adapted. In fact, almost no other King project really comes close… except for the strange case of Children of the Corn and its 11 (!) movies, most of which were straight-to-video projects few ever mention.
It’s easy to see why Carrie continues to be revisited. King’s horror-tragedy about a sheltered teenage girl raised by a domineering religious mother and bullied by her classmates, only to lash out in bloody revenge thanks to her hidden telekinetic powers, feels like a dark fairy tale of sorts. Its touchstones, most especially the prom that ends the story — and the image of Carrie covered in pig’s blood thanks to a diabolical prank, beginning her murderous rampage — are iconic and unforgettable.
October sees the debut of yet another version of Carrie, this time told in an expanded form as a streaming series from acclaimed filmmaker, television creator, and frequent King adapter Mike Flanagan. So with Carrie 2026 here, let’s look back at all of the adaptations we’ve gotten so far, from the beloved to the best left forgotten.
The gold standard of Carrie adaptations, Brian De Palma’s film is still the one that all others are compared to 50 years later, and still counted amongst the best King adaptations for all of his work. Yes, there are some very dated and silly 1970s fashions and stylistic flourishes in the film, and a couple of puzzling diversions, such as a tux-renting comic relief montage featuring Carrie’s prom date, Tommy (William Katt), alongside two guys who barely register as characters outside of this one sequence. But De Palma’s film still expertly captures the essence of King’s book and its inherent tragedy, aided in no small part by his terrific casting choices of the excellent Sissy Spacek as Carrie and Piper Laurie as her mother, Margaret.
Both women received well-deserved Oscar nominations for their roles, and the film benefits from great casting across the board, including Amy Irving as Carrie’s sympathetic classmate, the regretful Sue Snell, and Nancy Allen as the nasty Chris Hargensen, who will ultimately push Carrie over the edge.
And of course, De Palma absolutely nails the prom sequence. Spacek bathed in blood is an all-time classic cinematic image, and his audacious use of split-screen effects to track the mayhem that follows as Carrie begins to kill her classmates works incredibly well.
The 1980s stand out as the only decade since Carrie’s publication in the ’70s without a new movie or TV project based on the book, but that didn’t mean nothing was happening on the Carrie front. An infamous stage musical arrived to get plenty of attention in all the wrong ways.
Though it shared the same writer as the 1976 film, Lawrence D. Cohen, and even one cast member — Betty Buckley, who played gym teacher Miss Collins (renamed from the book’s Miss Desjardin) in the film, and was cast as Margaret for this production – Carrie: The Musical hardly got the same response. Burdened by a notably high budget while still navigating major technical difficulties thanks to its tricky effects, and with original songs that received, at best, divisive responses, the show was greeted by some audible boos according to reports at the time.
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