Script To Screen: “Carrie”

To me, the most interesting relationship in the 1976 movie Carrie, screenplay by Lawrence D. Cohen, novel by Stephen King, is the one between Carrie and her mother Margaret. The latter is one sick, demented soul.

IMDb plot summary: Carrie White, a shy, friendless 17 year-old girl who is sheltered by her domineering, religious mother, unleashes her telekinetic powers after being humiliated by her classmates at her senior prom.

Check out this mother/daughter exchange:

Here is the scene from the movie:

Compare the script to the scene and identify any differences between the two. Why do you think they made the changes they did?

One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script To Screen, a Go Into The Story series where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.

For more articles in the Script To Screen series, go here.