Carrie (1976)

The story of Carrie White is one that I always found very sad and sympathetic.  Her home life is terrifying; she seems to have been regularly abused, mentally, verbally and physically by her overly religious mother.  This seems to have affected her social skills, and she hides behind her flat hair in a meek shell.  At school, she is the subject of senseless bullying and torment.  She’s an easy target for the other girls, who seem like they could make the cast of Mean Girls gasp in horror at their antics.  When she finally finds her ability to fight back, it may be more than she can handle, and anyone who crosses her will pay dearly.

The film begins with a scene that feeds into any school yard outcast’s nightmares.  While showering after gym class, Carrie (Sissy Spacek) discovers she is bleeding.  We realize it is only her first period, but she has no knowledge of this process and goes into hysterics, begging her classmates for help.  They laugh and start pelting her with feminine hygiene products, chanting “Plug it up!” while poor Carrie cowers in the shower, certain she’s dying.  The cruelty and humiliation is almost too much to bear, and Miss Collins (Betty Buckley) is not much protection.

After the incident, one girl feels sorry for Carrie while another hates her more than ever.  Sue (Amy Irving) decides to do a good deed and let her popular boyfriend take Carrie to the senior prom.  When Chris (Nancy Allen) hears of it, she makes sure Carrie’s prom experience is one no one will ever forget.

What makes this a horror film is Carrie’s new found power of telekinesis and the shocking mother-daughter relationship.  The telekinesis seems to be a milestone that arrives with her new step into womanhood.  Moments of intense fear, anger or aggression seem to trigger random accidents around her: a light bulb bursting, an ashtray flying off a desk or a boy falling off his bike.  All the while her powers grow stronger.  At home, Carrie’s life feels like an oppressive hell.  Her mother, Margaret (Piper Laurie), beats her with religious texts, drags her across the floor and locks her in a closet to pray to a disturbing image of Christ with glowing eyes and arrows sticking out of him.

Some of the best scenes of the film are at Carrie’s home featuring the troubling mother-daughter dynamic.  Both Spacek and Laurie were Oscar nominated for their performances.  Spacek brings out Carrie’s vulnerability and constant fear so well.  Later when Carrie starts to assert herself more and be more comfortable around her peers, it’s refreshing and a triumph.  To contrast, Laurie’s portrayal of a this terrifying mother gives me the creeps perfectly.  When she gets on a roll with her quotes about sin, nothing can stop her, she becomes a force.  While her character can seem so outlandish, Laurie makes her believable, like a nightmare you cannot shake.

While Carrie is not your typical slasher or supernatural scary movie, it is an essential and a classic.  It was based off of Stephen King’s debut novel and does the work justice.  If while watching the film, you feel weighted down in the focus on the social world of Carrie’s high school, just wait until the end.  The ending makes it all worth it.

“Pimples are the Lord’s way of chastising you.”

Missing

In an unnamed South American country (Chile), American couple Charlie (John Shea) and Beth Horman (Sissy Spacek) have been living, writing and soaking up the culture.  When civil war breaks out, the streets are filled with danger, night and day.  Charlie takes notes on everything that happens around him, especially how the American officials react to the violence.  The last words we see him say as he heads back to his house are, “They can’t hurt us, we’re Americans!”

After Charlie disappears, his father, Ed (Jack Lemmon), travels down to find him.  Ed has this idea that he’s just down there to clean up the mess his irresponsible, day dreaming son made.  He also has complete faith that the American government will help them find Charlie.  Ed is also a man of religious faith, a Christian-scientist.  To some that may sound like an oxymoron, so is believing in the American officials in Chile.

A good portion of this film is watching Ed lose this faith.  Through the random acts of senseless violence he witnesses and the bravery he sees within Beth, he starts to understand the situation from his son’s point of view.  Every time he meets with the American officials, it’s just more frustration.  They make empty promises, shuffle through red-tape and lie right through their teeth.  At first, Ed can’t understand how Beth can be so rude to the only people that can help them.  It isn’t too long before Ed starts to see things clearly and thinks that Charlie’s disappearance and probably murder, was ordered by these same men.

What’s most disturbing and infuriating is the complete lack of valuing life in this place.  In one scene where Beth and Ed are allowed to check a morgue to see if they find Charlie, they are brought into a narrow hallway filled with bodies.  It’s a shocking moment, just terrible and disgusting.  Then it’s elevated when they’re brought to a room, also filled with corpses, then another and another.  We think this has to be as bad as it gets, then Beth looks up and sees the silhouettes of more corpses on the glass ceiling above.

There was only one main problem in this film.  It felt like we had barely met Charlie when he goes missing.  Sure, I saw his wife and father upset, but I was lacking that connection to Charlie and was left slightly apathetic.  Then later in the film, we see Charlie in some home movies, learn about some dreams, half finished projects he left and the real danger of his snooping around.  These things came a little late.  If the film really wanted me to feel the same loss and anguish that Spacek and Lemmon were understanding, director Costa-Gavras needed to put the horse before the cart.

“You Americans, you always assume you must do something before you can be arrested.”

In the Bedroom

A college boy is home with his parents for the summer and starts dating an older woman with two children.  It’s not official yet, but she plans to divorce her husband, whose family owns a large local business.  He becomes jealous, angry and violent.  The boy’s aging parents try to warn their son about the dangers of fooling around with a married woman.  But the mother tries to preach too much and the father secretly envies his son.  When tragedy strikes, life is completely changed, becomes unbearable and drives people to do crazy things.

This film is completely charged with emotion and it is the driving force to the end.  That’s about all I can say without revealing any spoilers, so for those who want a fresh view, stop here.  All others proceed.

***Spoiler Alert!***

The bulk of In the Bedroom is about the boy’s parents trying to move on after the murder of their son.  Yes, he dies early on.  If you’re upset, I warned you, remember?  Most of their grieving is accompanied by silence.  The movie is tragically quiet.  All around the couple are reminders of the youth they’ve lost.  All their friends have children and grandchildren and their blood won’t live on.  It is heart wrenching.

Everything changes after their son dies.  Their cute old couple relationship turns on a dime to very cold and quiet.  It seems they sit on the couch staring blankly at the television for days.  Friends don’t know what to say around them anymore.  Their solemn spirits even show through the mother’s work when her choir girls walk into the Labor Day concert with candles.  The whole picnic crowd looks as cheerful as tombstones in a graveyard.

This is a story of loss and grief and anguish.  And you may wish that the couple will just move to Florida to bask in the sunshine through their golden years and tell proud stories of their son.  Don’t get your hopes up.  It’s not that kind of movie.

One of the best scenes works like an emotional explosion.  Ruth and Matt finally talk about their son and what they say to each other is shocking.  Every pent up piece of anger, regret and blame is thrown out of the bag and it’s a little scary to watch.  It’s the few scenes that blow the walls down like that that gave both Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek Oscar nominations.

If you’re wondering where the title of the film comes from, think of an old lobster trapper’s saying.  For those not familiar with lobster lingo don’t worry, you’ll catch it in the first few minutes of the film.  Remember, two is company, three’s a crowd.

Now, this film may not stir the soul of an average young person, but I hope it does.  Mostly, I recommend this to older couples, and hope that they have sunnier days than those depicted here.  For you young people, see it anyway.  Maybe with your parents, but be ready for those teary eyes to look at you with some gratitude and brace for a hug.  They might need one.

“He was with her not because of me. He went there because of you. Because you are so controlling, so overbearing, so angry, that he was it! That he was our only son!”

Coal Miner’s Daughter

Unfortunately, there are probably too many young people out there who don’t know who Loretta Lynn is.  Not many people listen to classic country music today when there’s Lady Gaga, T-Pain and YouTube.  But my mom’s side is from Kentucky, I grew up with radios tuned to country and I have some fond memories of watching The Grand Ole Opry with my grandma.  So maybe I’m just one of the few in my generation that could really appreciate Coal Miner’s Daughter.

It’s the story of country singer Loretta Lynn (Sissy Spacek) as she rises from her humble beginning in Appalachia Kentucky.  Her daddy slaves away in the coal mine and her mama takes care of eight kids.  Loretta gets married at thirteen and starts having babies at fourteen.  In no time, she’s got a whole slew of kids to take care of.  Her husband notices Loretta’s natural talented voice and gets her a guitar for an anniversary gift.  She takes to the guitar like a duck to water, singing to her kids.  Though Loretta’s reluctant and shy at first, her husband pushes her to make a record and then to drive across Kentucky and Tennessee promoting it at every radio station they find.  Before she even knows it, Loretta’s a star on the charts.

Sissy Spacek gives the performance of a lifetime and wins the Oscar for her role as Loretta.  She’s able to raise Loretta up from a naive, innocent girl, to a shy woman peddling her records all the way to a glitzy star on the big stage while always keeping her strictly Loretta.  Mastering that distinct hillbilly drawl seems challenging enough, but Sissy also sang all the songs in the film.

Just as they have always been, Lynn’s songs are wonderful.  They’re the only suitable soundtrack and bring out the true heart of Lynn’s story.  If you enjoy country music at all, that’s enough to put Coal Miner’s Daughter on a must watch list.

“I done wrote me a song Betty Sue. Your mama dadgome songwriter now.”