Mixed Blessings

At the start of Brian De Palma’s Carrie (1976), the heroine’s rage and pain unleash strange powers. In the school locker room, after she’s been brutally humiliated by her schoolmates and slapped by her teacher, a light fixture explodes. Later, when the principal keeps pronouncing her name incorrectly, an ashtray takes flight and crashes on the floor. Walking back home, Carrie crosses paths with a kid who cruelly mocks her, and suddenly the boy’s bicycle veers and topples over. Confused by her own powers, Carrie visits the library in search of an explanation; she consults an index card labelled ‘Miracle’. However, when her fanatically religious mother learns about her abilities, she immediately identifies the Devil’s hand.