Bounding Into Halloween, Night 23: It’s Psionic Revenge With ‘Carrie (1976)’ And ‘Beyond The Black Rainbow’
As the headline suggests, tonight’s double feature are two completely different scenarios, and they both serve as cautionary tales of what happens when you mess with someone who not only has truly mastered mind over matter, but they’ve also spent enough time alone to hone their skills.
From a surreal underground facility to a prom night that gets a little too hot and heavy, let the payback begin!
Carrie (1976)
Brian De Palma (Phantom of the Paradise, Dressed To Kill, Scarface) directed this adaptation of the 1974 debut novel by an author who seems to get a little too much enjoyment from murdering dogs in the stories that would follow, and it tells of sixteen-year-old Carrie White (Sissy Spacek).
Tormented by her classmates, and abused by her religious nutjob mother (Piper Laurie) when she gets home, this poor kid is really getting it from both ends.
With her passing into maturity at one of the worst possible times, telekinetic abilities awaken within Carrie, and just in time for the prom. The bullies at her school have a sinister plan in store, but it only adds fuel to what will be a hellish inferno for them all because after that night, nobody is gonna laugh at Carrie White ever again.
This is the first of many movies based on the literary works of a man who has been voted “Most Valuable Simp” by the Boston Red Sox for the past five decades, and it’s still one of the best. Still, the opening credits are more than a little suspect through the eyes of modernity.
Sissy Spacek was perfectly cast as the tragic anti-hero, Nancy Allen is so easy to hate as Chris Hargenson, and we get to see a babyface newcomer named John Travolta before he would go on to become Nicolas Cage.
Carrie is currently burning down the gymnasium on AMC+, and the trailer is below:
RELATED: ‘Doctor Sleep’ Director Mike Flanagan And Stephen King Team Up Again For Amazon’s ‘Carrie’ Series
Beyond The Black Rainbow (2010)
This brilliantly bizarre indie film is the debut of director Panos Cosmatos (Mandy). To fund the project, he used to DVD residuals from Tombstone (1993) that he inherited from his late father (and the film’s director, George Cosmatos), and this is where fans get their first taste of his obsession with the year 1983.
It takes place at a new age facility called The Arboria Institute that exists in what appears to be an alternate timeline where the futuristic meets the early 80s.
Founding in the 1960s, Arboria’s goal was to lead mankind towards enlightenment, and inner peace through technology. They quickly figure out that neither of these are compatible with our nature, and the place is pretty much empty by 1983, save for young Elena (Eva Bourne, but credited as Eva Allan).
She is a lifelong “patient” of the institute, and she also possesses burgeoning telepathic abilities that have the potential to make her an Omega-Level threat to the world, but this most certainly is not a Marvel comic.
Elena is subjected to torturous “therapy” sessions by the facility’s head of research, Barry Nyle (Michael Rogers), and he’s crazy enough to think that this will make her attracted to him. Then one day she finds a way to get loose from her cell, and the trippy breakout begins.
Most newcomers will struggle to deduce a lot of what I just said from this slow hypnotic homage to classic Sci-Fi/Horror. It’s like Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch made a movie together while binge-drinking, and they called up John Carpenter to do the music.
Beyond the Black Rainbow makes for a great midnight screening, and it’s a staple for Industrial music DJs to project onto the nightclub walls during their sets. Take the trip now on HULU, and here’s the trailer:
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