Carrie White returns to the screen again, but this time the story of Stephen King is told in an eight-part television series. The new adaptation was created by Mike Flanagan and debuted on Prime Video on October 7. All episodes are available simultaneously.
Summer H. Howell plays Carrie, and Samantha Sloan plays her mother Margaret White. The cast also includes Sienna Agudong as Sue Snell, Allison Thornton as Chris Hargensen, Joel Ouellette as Tommy Ross, Josie Totah as Tina, Amber Midthunder as Miss Desjardins, and Matthew Lillard as Principal Grail. Over 1,000 actors auditioned for the lead role, according to Prime Video, while the Los Angeles Times reported that approximately 1,400 candidates applied.
The story is set in the present
The plot remains the same as King's 1974 novel. Carrie is an isolated, bullied high school student who discovers she has telekinetic abilities. But the new version expands the world around her to include social media, online humiliation, and videos that can turn school bullying into a public scandal.
The series begins after Carrie's father's death, when she must leave the closed world of her home and confront public school. This is one of the significant changes from the novel and previous adaptations. The story is built around the question of how everyday acts of cruelty gradually lead to a tragic climax.
“We talked a lot about what bullying looks like and the personal anxieties of students today“, says Mike Flanagan, describing his conversations with high school students during the preparation.Flanagan is a writer and executive producer, and Stephen King also executive produces. Flanagan directed the first, second, seventh, and eighth episodes. The rest are entrusted to Kate Siegel, Axel Carolin, Kyra Sedgwick and Hiromi Kamata.
The first TV version of „Carrie“
The new series is the first television adaptation of the novel in serial format. Before it, the story was remade for the cinema by Brian De Palma in 1976, for television as a movie in 2002 and by Kimberly Pierce in 2013. De Palma's version with Sissy Spacek remains the most familiar screen adaptation and in 2026 it will be 50 years since its premiere.
Instead of repeating only the familiar tale of the ball and the blood, Flanagan's production uses the longer television format to develop the relationships between Carrie, Margaret and the students around them. The underlying conflict, however, remains the same: what happens when years of fear, isolation, and humiliation collide with a force that no one around Carrie understands.
The series is produced by Amazon MGM Studios and is now available to watch on Prime Video.
Sources: latimes.com, the-independent.com, aboutamazon.com