The first film to be adapted from a
Stephen King novel,
Carrie launched Sissy Spacek's career. Even though the actress was well into her twenties, she earned an Oscar nod for playing the shy high-school senior with telekinetic powers. When Carrie is crowned in pig's blood at her prom, she massacres the entire school with her crazy-chick wrath. In The New Yorker,
Pauline Kael raved, "Spacek uses her freckled pallor and whitish eyelashes to suggest a squashed, groggy girl who could go in any direction … I don't see how this performance could be any better."