Spoilers
I am, of course, talking about the ending where Carrie White’s hand shoots up from the grave.
The ending truly misunderstands the point of Carrie White’s character, and the novel. She is supposed to be a tragic character who had a genetic condition she couldn’t control (telekinesis), raised by an abusive, fanatically religious mother who stayed a virgin even after getting married and only conceived after her drunk husband had raped her (which, by her own admission, was the only time in her life she experienced sexual pleasure). Carrie was bullied for being weird (even when freaking out while having her first period, because she had no idea what that was), was pushed to her limits, was finally shown some kindness by Tommy and Sue, but had that ruined by the bullies (bucket of pig blood), finally snapped and did something admittedly horrible (it is horror, after all), and then died.
Pulling off the ending with her hand rising from the grave, pretty much turning her into some kind of horror movie villain like Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger or Jason, who never dies and always comes back, and surviving victims always have to watch out; that misses the whole point of the character. And yes, I’m aware she predates those other villains.
To be fair, it turns out to only be a nightmare that Sue had. But still, the effect/message is the same. It also comes off as lame redo of the ending to “Deliverance”, which came out only four years earlier.
Stephen King even explains his inspiration and intentions in a prologue (included in later editions):
"Pretty soon, I had an idea for a longer story. I thought, I could write about an awkward girl with lots of spunk and attitude, no older than fifteen, but unbalance her, with telekinetic powers. Then I remembered a girl back in high school. She was overweight, had greasy hair, and bad acne, and I began to tell her story.
About two pages into it, my mind wandered off, and the ghosts of two girls, brought themselves forward again. I’d rather not mention their name, so we’ll call them Tina White, and Sandra Irving.
Tina went to Durham Elementary School with me. There is a goat in every class, the kid who is always left without a chair in musical chairs, the one who winds up wearing the KICK ME HARD sign, the one who stands at the end of the pecking order. This was Tina. Not because she was stupid (she wasn’t), and not because her family was peculiar (it was) but because she wore the same clothes to school every day.
(…)
After Christmas one year, Tina came in wearing an entirely new outfit. I can’t remember that one, only how happy she was to be wearing it. I think she might have even been wearing nylons. And I can clearly remember how her hopeful vivacity changed-first into surprise, then into anger, and finally into dull acceptance-as the teasing and the insults and the sarcastic comments rained down on her. Instead of abating, the kids’ rejection of Tina became even fiercer. I did not take part in this behavior, which can only be termed as hazing, but I didn’t speak against it. Hell, I was only fourteen years old. It’s hard to stand up when you’re fourteen.
(…)
Sandra Irving lived about a mile-and-a-half from the house where I grew up. Mrs Irving hired me one day to help her move some furniture … I was struck by the crucifix hanging in the living room, over the Irving couch. If such a gigantic icon had fallen when the two of them were watching TV, the person it fell on would almost certainly have been killed.
(…)
Neither girl, unfortunately, had Carrie White’s wild talent. Neither made it through high school, nor saw the age of thirty. Tina committed suicide, hanging herself in her cellar. Sandy died during an epileptic seizure in the small apartment she had taken in the town where we had all gone to high school.
(…)
I did three single-spaced pages of a first draft, then crumpled them up in disgust and threw them away.
The next night, when I came home from school, my wife Tabby had the pages. She’d spied them while emptying my waste-basket, had shaken the cigarette ashes off the crumpled balls of paper, smoothed them out and sat down to read them. She wanted me to go on. I did, mostly to please her. The result turned out to be the short novel which follows-dated now, but still with a surprising power to hurt and horrify. It was published by Doubleday in 1974 and has remained in print ever since. Sometimes-quite often, in fact-I wish that Tina and Sandy were alive to read it.
Or their daughters."
But in 2013 remake, they go a step further and Carrie’s hand actually rises from the grave, it’s not a nightmare. And then the movie ends.
Not to mention, plot-wise, it doesn’t even make sense. It has been established that Carrie’s telekinetic powers are a result of a genetic disorder, passed on by her father. It works the opposite of hemophilia, where mothers are carriers and sons show the symptoms; here, fathers are carriers and daughters show the symptoms. There is nothing demonic/supernatural about it. The novel even mentions that, in supposed haunted houses, all families had daughters, so the objects moving (apparently on their own) was due to the girls’ telekinetic powers acting up, not ghosts or anything like that. “Carrie” is basically a science-fiction horror, that doesn’t feel like science-fiction horror (because it’s not about aliens, viruses, zombie outbreak etc.).
So…how does that ending make sense? She has telekinetic powers due to a genetic condition, so she’s a zombie now? She’s immortal? She can rise from the dead after being buried for a month? Come on.
Then again; there is also a 2002 adaptation where Carrie survives the prom massacre, and she and Sue run away together… truly ahead of its time.
