Best Monster of All Time

At first glance, Carrie White appears to be just a high school girl. She’s very shy, has no friends and mother who can only be described as crazy. After being harassed in the gym locker rooms by her classmates, Carrie becomes so enraged that she shatters a light bulb… with her mind. As if her life couldn’t get any worse, when she’s sent to the principles office, he calls her Cassie. She flips the ashtray off of his desk, again by just using her mind. With the new-found power of telepathy, Carrie is ready to pay back all of the people who overlooked her before.
The movie Carrie is based on the novel by Stephen King written in 1974. Just two years later, the novel was made into the movie directed by Brian De Palma staring Sissy Spacek as the ever-haunting Carrie.
Carrie is asked to the prom by the popular and athletic, Tom. Hoping that someone was finally being genuine, she said yes.
She is voted prom queen and Tom, prom king. When she went up to accept the crown, the popular girls dump a bucket of pig’s blood on her. That was Carrie White’s breaking point. Chaos ensues. Electrocution. Falling rafters. A fire. Telepathically blocking all entrances in the gym, she killed every single person. And she doesn’t even flinch. Carrie walks home still covered in blood.
What makes Carrie White such a great monster? The fact that she could be anyone makes me terrified. She doesn’t need a mask, a costume or anything to be scary. The wide-eyed look she gets on her face right before she causes drama isn’t an angry look. She always remains surprisingly calm never giving away what is about to happen. The kids at Bates High School never saw it coming. Personally, I felt for Carrie. The poor girl had a horrible time at school and a horrible home life. By the time she’s killing all of her classmates, you’re on her side. You want to see her take revenge on all of these people who have caused her so much pain pain. Carrie White will forever haunt me, which makes her the best monster of all time.

Femme Fatale

Phyllis Dietrichson is what I picture as the classic “femme fatale”. Throughout the movie, she uses her feminine ways to seduce Walter Neff into helping her kill her husband. In the scene where the two first meet, Dietrichson is standing above Neff on the second floor with nothing but a towel on. Standing above him symbolized that she was superior to him from the start. And she used her charming personality to talk Neff into helping her kill Mr. Dietrichson.
I believe that Phyllis was the smartest person in the film. She knew how to work with what she had. Walter Neff quickly falls for Dietrichson. The way she came to him in his apartment and swooned over him in the short amount of time they had known each other should have been a tip-off to Neff that she was a little crazy. He had been working in the insurance business long enough to know how to kill Mr. Dietrichson properly and he should have spotted what Phyllis was trying to do. He was too quick to trust her and her intentions.

Fate, Football & Free Will

At the beginning of this section Harvey plays football and baseball with great drive to be the best. But by the end, he has quit all sports and is now spending his free time in his parent’s shop. Harvey exercises his free will in choosing to quit all of these sports. He could have stuck with them and worked harder at becoming better, but chose to quit the minute it got hard. In choosing to quit sports, he took a road that in the end he may not enjoy as much because he now has to spend all of his time at the dreaded store. He said it himself on page 14 that “if [he] didn’t think [he] could get praise from participating in a sport [he’d] refuse to play.” He quit the baseball team in 5th grade because the pitcher could pitch faster than he could hit. He “figured” he wouldn’t be a star so he decided to give up the sport. Quitting for Harvey would be a million times easier than working hard to get what he wanted. If the sport didn’t come easy to him, he was done with it. In eighth grade he decided to go out for the football team, but found that the year he took off because of his bar mitzvah may have caused him to fall behind in ability. That year in Harvey’s mind he felt that the coach didn’t like him and didn’t play him so he quit. In the ninth grade, Harvey switched positions from fullback to guard deciding that guard was a simpler position for him to play. He had an acceptable year. The following year, he tried out for a starting guard position. Another boy who Harvey thought was not as good as him was put in the starting position. Harvey’s anger got the best of him here because the other player got the position Harvey coveted. This time Harvey was actually trying to be part of a team; he worked harder but found little reward when he was benched again. When he wasn’t in the starting position, he quit, but this time for good. This shows his ambivalence with regard to commitment. But Harvey thinks that wrestling might be a good sport for him, but before he even gives it a chance he psyches himself out because he claims to “expect so much from himself.” Does he really expect that much from himself? Or does he know that he will eventually just quit in the end. Does he use fate to excuse his quitting.

Still Images & Framing

The main focus of this frame is Agatha.  She looks very angelic with the light coming from behind her.  Personally, I am really drawn to her face and more specifically her eyes.  She appears in the foreground of the frame and the light is coming from behind her.  She is placed to the left side of the frame; I think to show the all of the light that is coming from behind her and to her right.  Agatha looks like she is very concentrated and thinking about something.  She appears to be having a vision and the light coming from behind her symbolizes realization or a breakthrough. Her face is fully illuminated where as in most of the movie only half of people’s faces have been lit up.  Most people’s faces who were only partially lit up ended up to be bad people and here Agatha looks very pure, showing that she is an ally and good person.  The shot is a close up of Agatha, which was a good choice because there isn’t much else that needs to be shown in this shot.  Her face and the light really says it all.  You really see nothing else in this shot; no clothes, no furniture and you really can’t tell the location.  Her face barely even has any makeup on.  All of these choices really just add to the purity of Agatha and the shot.