Four decades later, we're still creeped out by "Carrie," still the ultimate high school horror movie. Released 40 years ago this week (on November 3, 1976), "Carrie" not only made a star of Sissy Spacek and introduced movie audiences to Stephen King, but it also marked the big-screen debuts of Amy Irving, P.J. Soles, and Betty Buckley, as well as giving early film-career boosts to William Katt and John Travolta.
Still, as many times as you've watched Spacek wreak telekinetic vengeance over her bloody prom-night humiliation, there's a lot you may not know about "Carrie." Celebrate the 40th anniversary with these need-to-know facts.
1. "Carrie" was both Stephen King's first novel and his first to become a movie. Back then, he was still obscure enough that the makers of the film's trailer misspelled his first name as "Steven." See below:
2. Directors Brian De Palma and George Lucas staged open auditions together for both "Carrie" and the original "Star Wars." Both sought Amy Irving for their female lead, and William Katt almost ended up starring in Lucas' movie instead of De Palma's.
3. Eventually, of course, Lucas cast Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia (after De Palma had picked Sissy Spacek over Fisher for Carrie) and Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, while Irving and Katt wound up in supporting roles in De Palma's film. Even so, Irving and Fisher ended up becoming close friends.
5. Spacek was already 26 when she was cast as a teen having her first period. (Her husband, Jack Fisk, was the film's production designer.) In fact, all of the principal stars were well past their teen years.
7. Eventually, however, he sought out Piper Laurie (above), even though she hadn't made a film in 15 years, since her Oscar-nominated turn in "The Hustler." She had all but retired from acting to raise a family and was reluctant to return in what could have been a two-dimensional role. But De Palma convinced her that she could bring some dark humor and even sex appeal to the character beyond what was scripted.
9. To keep the red stains on her prom dress and all over her body consistent throughout the three days it took to shoot the prom sequence, Spacek slept in the bloody gown. Yeah, it wasn't really pig blood, just corn syrup and food coloring. Still, De Palma said that it made Spacek smell like gummy candy that had been sitting on a radiator.
11. Nancy Allen, who played mean-girl Chris, started dating De Palma during the shoot. They were soon married and made three more movies together.
13. Irving recalled the matchmaking a little differently. She said De Palma fixed them up by sending her to read for Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," for a part she was obviously not old enough to play. Either way, Irving and Spielberg were soon living together, though they didn't get married until 1985. They had one child before they divorced in 1989.
15. The notorious dream sequence at the end was shot in reverse (with Irving walking backwards and cars driving in reverse), then played forward. De Palma borrowed the hand-thrusting-from-the-grave shot at the end from the climax of "'Deliverance." De Palma wanted to use a stunt woman, but Spacek insisted on doing the shot herself.
17. Studio executives watching an early test screening were appropriately terrified by that last shot; they hadn't known it was coming, since De Palma had purposely left it out of the script.
19. King's first time seeing "Carrie" was during a sneak preview on Halloween night in 1976, three days before it opened. As he has recalled a number of times, he and his wife Tabitha attended the screening in Boston, where the sneak was the second half of an unlikely double feature with the Redd Foxx comedy "Norman... Is That You?"
21. Indeed, "Carrie," which cost $1.8 million to make, earned $33.8 million at the box office, making it a smash by 1976 standards.
22. "Carrie" earned Spacek an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress and a Best Supporting Actress nod for Laurie, making them two of only a very few performers who've ever been nominated for their roles in a horror movie.
