David Farnor | On 31, Oct 2026

“It wasn’t just Carrie.” Those are the words from Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) in the first episode of Carrie, Amazon Prime Video’s series reimagining the iconic horror story – and they open up the adaptation with fresh depth, relevance horror for today’s digital world. Then again, that shouldn’t come as a surprise when you remember that the show is created by none other than horror maestro Mike Flanagan.

Flanagan’s one of the most interesting and timely storytellers in the genre, and comes to Carrie with a TV track record that includes The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass. Now, he returns to his familiar territory of Stephen King to once again delve into new and darker corners of the source material – although, of course, King’s novel is better known to people by Brian De Palma’s seminal feature film based on the book. There have been attempts to update the story since for a new generation – most notably 2013’s film by Kimberly Pierce – but Flanagan’s eight-part exploration of the material has the breathing space to take its characters and themes into new directions.

Summer H Howell is remarkable as Carrie herself, whose father dies at work and whose mother, Margaret (Samantha Sloyan), is a heavily conservative Christian. Their dynamic is rich and packed with nuance, turning Margaret from an oppressive monster into a scared mum who is as alarmed and out of place in the world as her daughter – even though her protective instincts and closeted mind make her dangerous and harmful in her own right. Carrie, by contrast, is a ray of hopeful light when we first meet her – Flanagan and Howell turn Carrie into a darkly twisted cousin of Anne of Green Gables, as this heartbreakingly innocent and kind figure (who even quotes Anne to her teachers) is introduced with the forewarning of what she will go on to do.

Her home-schooled entry into the school environment is as much Mean Girls as it is bloody nightmare, and Flanagan’s fleshing out of the high school environment roots everything in a teen drama that’s as compelling as it is convincing – and finds as much terror in school emergency training drills as it does in supernatural occurrences. Alison Thornton and Siena Agudong shine as the two key tormentors and allies in the school corridors, with Thornton’s Chris digging into her own reasons for her cruelty and insecurity, and Agudon’s Sue grappling with her moral compass, as well as her bullying best friend, who is hopefully destined to go to the same college as her.

The supporting cast are uniformly excellent. The stand-outs include the superb Matthew Lillard as the conflicted and put-upon head teacher, who is both able and entirely unable to make a difference in these kids’ lives, and the scene-stealing Thalia Dudek as Emaline, who becomes a confidante to Carrie.

All these gripping character conflicts ground the story in its real, resonant horror: the relentless and ubiquitous impact of bullying at school in an online and social media age, something quickly made clear in the vividly nasty shower scene. But we also know where things are headed, and the opening flash of a fiery conclusion sets the tone to ominous – while talking heads reveal fresh details with a documentary-like chill. A pitch-perfect expansion of a familiar tale, brilliantly executed.

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