Carrie is one of the earliest portrayals of a girl or any person with telekinetic powers put on film, and is an adaptation of Stephen King's first novel of the same name. It predates _Star Wars_, _Scanners_, _Akira_, _Matilda_, and might have even given inspiration to those said titles. The story and terrific acting makes you feel sad, angry, dream-like all at once. You can't help but feel for Carrie White when she's at her highest and her lowest because she's bullied at school all the time and has a crazy Christian mother. But you better watch out when her emotions spike; you definitely don't want to be around when she's angry. Actress Sissy Spacek, who played Carrie, makes some strikingly mean facial expressions combined with the high violin notes that will send chills and turn you to stone that very moment. Some of the music is nice; I especially like the ballad-like love theme that played at the beginning and during the prom, but there are a couple funky 70s synth tunes in between. There were a couple times when I swear I thought I heard the famous shrieking violins from 1960 Hitchcock's _PSYCHO_ play. Perhaps that might've been intended to add the sense of "psychokinesis".
There are some characters that try to do good, but things end up tragic for them as well. A young John Travolta is a sight to see, and I can not forget William Katt in this whom I remember from the 1986 horror, _HOUSE_. Carrie's mother, Margaret, is played by Piper Laurie, whom later I realized that she has starred as the mother in _Return to Oz_ (1985) and also as Catherine in _Twin Peaks_ (1990). There's a good use of red in this, and seems to be the prominent color representing blood, or even "the devil" as Carrie's mother mentions.
I sure would like to see a prequel film or even a series that tells the story of Carrie's father (and mother) because it seemed as if Carrie had carried her powers over from her father's (whose name was mentioned in the film but I keep forgetting) genes. I had not seen any of the later Carrie films and/or remakes that came after this one. Maybe some day I'll eventually get to those, but Scream Factory just released a collector's edition Blu-ray of this 1976 Carrie this month, so I'm looking to get that. It is currently available on VUDU for free if you're curious and have never seen the original Carrie.