The Story Behind The Shot: Fire, blood and Sissy Spacek in ‘Carrie’
Horror cinema flourished in the 1970s, and Brian De Palma‘s Carrie was one of the genre’s most successful outputs. Adapted from Stephen King’s 1974 novel of the same name, Carrie further boasted Sissy Spacek’s career following her acclaimed role in Terrence Mailk’s 1973 crime drama Badlands. It’s hard to imagine anyone else playing the troubled, telekinesis-possessed teenager Carrie White; Spacek fully embodies the role with horrifying verve.
The prom scene is the most iconic scene from the movie, recognisable to those who have never even seen it. Banned from the prom after bullying Carrie, Chris (Nancy Allen) plots her revenge, setting up a bucket of pig’s blood to fall on Carrie’s head in front of the school. Ballots are switched to ensure that Carrie is crowned prom queen, and soon enough, the shy protagonist finds herself drenched in blood as she accepts her unlikely crown. Yet, using her telekinesis powers, Carrie destroys the entire school, trapping everyone inside as a fire rips through the building.
The scene took two weeks to create and was shot over 35 takes. Yet, according to Spacek, the blood-soaking sequence took just two takes, although De Palma has claimed it only took one. Likely because of the set-ruining aspect of using the messy practical effects, there was little room for error. Luckily, the crew pulled it off, and the result was unforgettable. Of course, Spacek was not doused in actual pig’s blood. Instead, the effects crew made a mixture of Karo syrup and red food dye, which was extremely sticky.
Speaking to Yahoo! Movies, Spacek shared, “They warmed it up beforehand, and both times I remember it feeling like a warm blanket. It’s wonderful when you can just play a scene where something happens to you, and you just go with it. And Brian always seemed to have the camera in the right spot!” The blood was poured over Spacek by her husband, production designer Jack Fisk, whom she met on the set of Badlands. Moreover, due to the mixture’s viscous nature and the complexities of reapplying the blood, Spacek slept in her bloody costume until the scene was finalised.
For the moment when the prom goes up in flames, the crew avoided any need for fancy special effects and simply lit the entire set on fire. Talking to Yahoo! Movies, William Katt, who played Carrie’s prom date, Tommy Ross, claimed that the sound stage actually caught fire. He explained, “I remember being on set when they lit off the fire, because we were doing stuff out of sequence, right? I was already supposed to be lying on the ground, dead. So they lit the stage on fire, and the actual soundstage caught fire. And the AD was screaming for everybody to get out, and Brian was yelling for the camera department to keep rolling.”
He continued, “I thought that that was pretty funny. All the decorations, everything, caught fire, and I don’t believe that that was intentional.” Luckily, the fire was extinguished fairly quickly, and no one was injured. However, there was one on-set injury that occurred during the prom scene. In the scene where Norma (P.J Soles) is attacked by a fire hose, which Carrie launches at her using her telekinesis powers, the actor “blew out her eardrum,” according to Katt.
Despite a few on-set mishaps, the finished result is truly terrifying. Spacek’s unnerving performance as she watches her classmates and teachers frantically fight for their lives is an indelible moment in cinema history.
