How Mike Flanagan's Take on Carrie Upends the Tragedy of Stephen King's Horror Classic

Robert Falconer—Prime —Summer H.

Howell as Carrie White in Carrie.

Warning: This post contains spoilers for the finale of Carrie , now streaming.

If you ever wished Stephen King's Carrie was actually a story about a telekinetic teenager getting whisked away from the violence and isolation of her sheltered small-town life to join a secret society of fellow psychic outcasts, then the ending of Prime Video's new eight-episode Carrie series may appeal to you.

But if you were hoping for an adaptation that more meaningfully captures the tragic finality of King's 1974 novel, showrunner Mike Flanagan's open-ended take on the horror classic may leave you feeling a bit frustrated.

Over the course of the past decade, Flanagan has made a name for himself as one of the genre's leading auteurs with a steady output of Halloween season Netflix horror series, which ranged in quality from the superb Haunting of Hill House (a modern reimagining of Shirley Jackson's acclaimed 1959 novel) and Midnight Mass (an original work in the vein of King's Salem's Lot ) to the disappointing Midnight Club (a remix of the the YA horror novels of Christopher Pike).

Prior to taking on Carrie , Flanagan also received high praise from King for his film adaptations of Gerald's Game (a book that was long considered unadaptable) and The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep (which bridged the divide between Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film and the author's literary universe).

However, Flanagan apparently had reservations about putting his own spin on a property as well-trodden as Carrie , especially considering how beloved Brian de Palma's 1976 Sissy Spacek-led film remains to this day.

"It initially started as a conversation that Amazon initiated, and they said, 'Hey, would you have any interest in Carrie ?,'" he told MovieWeb in 2024.

"And I had to think about it, because my first instinct is always—why? It's been done perfectly by De Palma.

It's then been done three other times after the fact.

Why do it again?" But he ultimately came to the conclusion there was an opportunity to reframe the story through a modern lens in a way that would bring new relevance to King's themes.

" Carrie is a story about high school violence and bullying, and that feels immediate and important today.

Unfortunately, even more kind of sharply relevant than I think it was when he wrote it," Flanagan said.