CARRIE (2026) Review: In Flanagan We Trust

Introduction

Stephen King may be one of the most adapted authors in history, but that doesn’t mean every one of his books is ideally suited to a two-hour movie. In fact, I have increasingly come to believe that literary works are often better served by a limited streaming series. A novel has room to develop its characters and the world around them in ways that a feature film simply doesn’t have time to do. It allows characters to breathe and the plot to proceed at a pace that is familiar to a reader as well as a viewer.

Of course, there is a downside. Give filmmakers six or eight hours to adapt a book, and suddenly they feel obligated to fill every minute of it. New characters appear. Unnecessary subplots are created. And what should have been a tightly told story becomes bloated. More time doesn’t automatically mean a better adaptation.

After watching the first two episodes of Prime Video’s new adaptation of Carrie, that doesn’t appear to be a problem here. Mike Flanagan is at the helm and has previously steered the dangerous waters of adapting Stephen King with Gerald’s Game (2017), an excellent Netflix adaptation; Doctor Sleep (2019), which brilliantly bridged King’s The Shining and Stanley Kubrick’s very different film adaptation; and The Life of Chuck (2025), which was one of my favorite films of that year. At least, it’s not a problem yet.

Flanagan’s Carrie

These first two episodes are solid. More importantly, the additional running time feels like it is being used to tell the story rather than simply extend it. Carrie is a story most of us already know, whether from King’s novel, Brian De Palma’s 1976 film, or one of the adaptations that followed. That makes the question less about what happens and more about what this version can find in the material that we haven’t already seen. Two episodes in, I’m interested in finding out.

From the start, Flanagan sets his version apart by beginning at the end. A television newscast is covering the horrific event and the destruction and death that have devastated the town of Chamberlain. We already know something terrible has happened. Of course, most of us knew that before we ever pressed play. Flanagan doesn’t pretend that Carrie is a story whose ending remains a secret more than fifty years after King first published the novel. Instead, the question becomes how we get there.

That turns out to be a smart way into such familiar material. Flanagan can show us the destination and then slow everything down. This allows us to spend time with Carrie, her mother, Margaret White, Carrie’s classmates, and Chamberlain itself. The tragedy isn’t dependent upon surprising us. It’s dependent upon making us care about the people who are heading toward it.

Discussion

I liked the choice of using a news program looking back on the tragedy as the backdrop for the story. It is here that we meet most of the primary characters. Each offers their own recollections of Carrie. Their opinions of her drift all over the place, but eventually the focus settles on Sue Snell, played by Siena Agudong, who makes the rather surprising statement that she was Carrie’s best friend.

We then flash back to the beginning of the story and cover territory that I don’t think any previous adaptation has really explored: the sad story of Carrie’s father and how Carrie came to grow up in such a secluded state. This gives the series an opportunity to spend time establishing Carrie and Margaret’s life before getting to the parts of the story that we already know so well.

It also lays the groundwork for some contemporary updates to King’s story. The Whites appear to be extreme conservatives, both religiously and politically, and Margaret’s beliefs are established very quickly and very clearly. If I have one issue with these first two episodes, it is that the series keeps reinforcing this point long after we already understand it. After a while, it begins to feel like overkill. Margaret White has never exactly been a character known for subtle religious beliefs, but there were moments when I thought, yes, we get it.

My major concern is that this may continue throughout the remaining episodes of Carrie. There is plenty about Margaret White that makes her terrifying without constantly reminding us of her ideology. I hope that the series trusts the character and the audience enough to let some of that speak for itself as the story progresses forward.

The Cast

Carrie is played by Summer H. Howell, and it’s brilliant casting. She does a great job both looking and playing fifteen. I was shocked to discover that she was actually 21 when filming the series. Her performance is layered, from her joy at finally being able to go out into the world to her trepidation about interacting with her fellow teens. It all comes across as authentic. I also love Carrie’s love of literature and all the literary references scattered throughout these first two episodes. Howell is exceptional at conveying wide-eyed wonder and absolute horror, sometimes almost at the same time.

The rest of the cast is excellent as well. From the aforementioned Margaret White, played by Samantha Sloyan, to Amber Midthunder as Miss Desjardin and Matthew Lillard as Principal Grayle, there isn’t a weak performance in the bunch. Each of them adds something to the story and, more importantly, helps make Chamberlain feel populated by actual people rather than characters simply waiting around for Carrie’s story to happen.

The other character who is front and center is Chris Hargensen, played by Alison Thornton. Chris gets considerably more story here than she has in previous versions, and that additional time helps explain her absolute nastiness a little better. It doesn’t necessarily make her more sympathetic, but it does make her more understandable. We get some sense of how she became this person, rather than simply being asked to accept that she is the story’s resident mean girl.

Further Analysis

In a way, it feels like reading a King novel. King will sometimes give you nearly the entire backstory of a character who might otherwise seem relatively minor, because understanding where that person came from better prepares you for the choices they are going to make later. Flanagan takes full advantage of the streaming miniseries format to do something similar here. He isn’t just making Carrie longer. He uses additional time to get the viewer invested in these characters, their motivations, and how their individual choices will eventually contribute to the tragedy we already know is coming.

And because Flanagan showed us that tragedy at the very beginning, even some of these quieter character moments carry a sense of dread. We know where everyone is headed. They don’t. To quote Paul Harvey, I’m really looking forward to “the rest of the story.”

Conclusion

The two episodes I viewed only whetted my appetite for the rest of the series, and if Flanagan can maintain what he has established here, Carrie could be something special. Having the opportunity to watch these episodes at Fantastic Fest with an audience was also a real treat. It made me wonder how something like this might play in a theatrical environment, almost like going to the movies in the old days when you might watch the latest chapter of a serial before the main feature. Come back next week and see what happens to Carrie White.

This was also the second time in which I have been able to preview a Mike Flanagan production at Fantastic Fest 2026, the other being The Fall of the House of Usher. There is something particularly enjoyable about experiencing his work with a theater full of genre fans before eventually finishing off the story at home.

These first two episodes have certainly convinced me to come back for the rest. I hope people take the opportunity to watch the series, but I also highly recommend going back to the source. Read Carrie. Read Stephen King. There is a reason filmmakers continue returning to his work more than fifty years after Carrie was published. King is simply one of the great horror writers of the last century. For now, though, I have six episodes left. In Flanagan I trust.

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