Every Carrie adaptation has missed these 7 key details from Stephen King's novel

Mike Flanagan’s take on Stephens King's Carrie is the fourth version of the story brought to screen (or sixth, if you include a sequel released in 1999, and the short-lived musical).

While the novel was first released in 1974, it’s Brian De Palma’s 1976 movie which truly turned Carrie into a cult phenomenon, with Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie both nominated for Oscars for portraying the titular tortured teen who snaps and her abusive mother, respectively.

In the 50 years since, Carrie has been remade with Angela Bettis in 2002, Chloë Grace Moretz in 2013, and now Summer H Howell in Prime Video’s reinvention of the material.

While all adaptations tweaked things to their relevant modern day, most notably with the involvement of social media to add a new level of cruelty to Carrie’s torment, the core story has remained the same – though most have followed the framework from the original film, rather than the book it was based on.

As a result, several elements of the original novel have been lost – some of which are crucial to how the story plays out. Here are seven key elements of the original text missing from every version of the story to date.

1. Carrie was overweight

The most consistent critique of any adaptation by fans is we are yet to see a "book accurate" Carrie on screen.

Originally, King describes her as "a chunky girl with pimples on her neck and back and buttocks". In the shower scene alone, where Carrie gets her first period, he details the 16-year-old as a "frog among swans" and "bovinely", noting teacher Miss Desjardin secretly considers her a "fat whiny bag of lard". Sue Snell calls Carrie a "big dumb pudding" to her face as she wails, believing she’s dying. It’s a deliberately cruel and callous set-up for the girl who’s been the school punching bag since the first grade.

It’s also part of Chris and Billy’s decision to later douse her in pig’s blood – as Billy puts it, it’s "pig’s blood for a pig".

But when Carrie was brought to screen in 1976, the depiction changed with Sissy Spacek in the role. She became slim, almost to the point of frail, and meek. Spacek herself noted to Hollywood Reporter in 2025 she had to fight for the role, so auditioned in a torn dress with vaseline in her hair to accentuate her awkwardness.

Now, Carrie’s arguably the most defining role in Spacek’s 50-year career, with her portrayal so haunting that every adaptation since has decided to adopt her version of Carrie. As a result, none look like the character first described in the novel.

2. Carrie had crushes

In most on-screen versions of Carrie’s story (Prime Video’s newest release excluded), Margaret White’s discovery that her daughter got her period proves to be one of the most defining scenes of their abusive dynamic.

Relentlessly beating her as her daughter weeps at her feet, Carrie’s mum accuses her of having "sinful thoughts" while reciting scripture, before dragging her into a prayer closet, locking her in for hours and demanding she beg for forgiveness after receiving "the curse of blood".

This is all present and correct and straight out of the book in most adaptations. What no other version notes though, is that Carrie did have crushes on boys, though hid them away. Most notably, she had taken a liking to a celebrity called Flash Bobby Pickett, keeping a photo of him under her pillow and even writing a love letter to him while at camp. Flash Bobby Pickett is a fictional creation, but the consequences of her secret admiration when discovered are all too realistic.

When her mother finds the picture under her pillow, she locks her in the prayer cupboard for hours, and when the other kids get hold of the letter at camp, she’s viciously mocked, crushing her self-esteem even further.

It’s also inferred she had a crush on popular boy Tommy Ross – which is part of the reason she agrees to go to prom with him.

3. Billy Nolan was so much worse in the book

As Chris Hargensen’s boyfriend and co-conspirator in the prom debacle, Billy Nolan has always been depicted as the ‘bad boy’. But in the novel, his behaviour is even more extreme than what is shown on screen.

In all cases, he freely dabbles on the wrong side of the law, is part of a gang, smokes weed, and has an active role in murdering the pigs to get the blood needed to later drench Carrie at prom. But in all instances, his involvement is done at the insistence of Chris, who in some cases trades sexual favours in exchange for his help in her attack on Carrie.

Across the books, films and TV series, his age is never really noted. In the 1976 version, Billy was played by a 22-year-old John Travolta, so notably older than high schooler Chris, and is physically abusive of her when she mocks him.

In other versions, he’s never seen attending the school, with the assumption being he’s older than school age as he’s also not aware of Carrie and what happened in the locker room.

Finally, in the new series, he’s a drug dealer for the high school kids. It is explicitly stated he is working on a farm (where the pigs are), and even brushes off Chris as "jailbait" before she confirms she’s "just turned 18", shows him an ID, and actively pursues him, making their sketchy age gap a little less grubby and morally grey.

It’s noted throughout the book that Tommy looked older than his peers due to how he dressed – but he’s actually just 19, and still attending Ewen High School as he had to repeat ninth grade. He’s also extremely abusive to Chris, and while it was her idea to get even, it’s him who spearheads the attack on Carrie, revelling in the opportunity to do so.

Chris isn’t present like in the adaptations when the pigs are killed, with Billy taking his lackeys instead. He also sets up the pulley to dump the blood on Carrie alone, leaving Chris in the car as a lookout. It’s noted he does so with such glee he doesn’t even particularly care who the victim is – and would’ve even done it to Chris if he needed to.

On top of that, he actively plans to sexually assault Chris at the roadhouse they’re set to hide in, days before committing the crime – and goes on to attack her on prom night. By the time they’re alerted to the catastrophic fires taking over the town as a result of Carrie, he had already sexually assaulted her.

4. Sue’s involvement in the Prom Night attack is debated

In every version of the story, Sue Snell is the popular girl who feels guilty over the school’s treatment of Carrie. She tells boyfriend Tommy Ross to go to the prom with Carrie in order to atone for her involvement, giving her a "night to remember".

It’s shown as an act of altruism, with Tommy reluctantly going along with it, but having no ill will towards Carrie herself. While he doesn’t stop the bullying, he never has an active role in it, and as the popular guy in school, is aware his acceptance of her will aid the rest of the school in accepting her too.

In the 2002 version, Sue even grows to befriend Carrie, and in an effort to make the TV movie a backdoor pilot for a series, actively helps her escape over the state border to a new life after faking her death in the chaos of what happened on Prom night.

However, the novel uses extracts from "other books" on the incident, and professional investigations including The White Commission (a government inquiry into what happened in Chamberlain), where it’s suggested Sue was in on Chris’s revenge plan to drench her in blood on the prom stage.

One expert declares Sue’s version of events as "a highly romantic distortion or an outright lie", arguing teenagers would not deem it fit to make a grand gesture to a bullied student at their own expense. He suggests Sue may have been an active part of the set up to get Carrie to the prom, and into position for Chris to exact her revenge. As one of the few survivors, Sue was able to twist the story to make herself look more innocent than she actually was.

The White Commission also questions how she was able to find Carrie as she lay dying, implying she was perhaps involved in Carrie’s attack on the town and some blame lay with her, prompting Sue to ask: "Are you looking for the truth, or just a scapegoat?"

In extracts from her memoir, Sue doubles down that she did it as an act of kindness towards Carrie. She acknowledges she was involved in "some instances" of bullying throughout her time at school with Carrie, and wanted to try and fix it before they graduated. This is later confirmed by the story’s main narrative.

5. Carrie is also telepathic

While Carrie’s main ability is undoubtedly telekinesis, it is also heavily implied in the books that she is also telepathic – having the ability to read minds, as well as transmit them to those around her.

This ability only really shows itself during Prom Night, with several survivors speaking to The White Commission stating they knew Carrie White was to blame for the atrocities in Chamberlain. When asked how they knew, no one can explain it, all simply saying they "just knew", with her name coming to them like a vague dream, even if they’d never met or interacted with Carrie before.

It’s later also used to connect with Sue Snell, who is at home at the time of the prom night attack, but begins to feel that something has gone wrong, that boyfriend Tommy and Margaret White are dead, and that Carrie is to blame. She then follows this instinct, leading her to later find Carrie in a parking lot. Again, Sue is unable to explain how she knows to find her there, later raising suspicion about her involvement with The White Commission.

This has been completely eradicated from on-screen adaptations, though to be fair, it’s hard to show her sending messages to people’s brains, especially at a point in time where there is literal fire, brimstone and murder playing out.

6. Carrie tried to pray away the carnage

While most of the events of prom night play out in the adaptations as written in the books, they’ve always been reordered.

In on-screen adaptations, Carrie remains in the school gymnasium, drenched in blood, and starts enacting her revenge from the stage, setting it ablaze after locking people inside. She then leaves, with any other major incident in the town coming as a result of a direct target.

In the books, Carrie goes after the town as a whole after suffering her final humiliation of being covered in pigs' blood, and then being laughed at as she falls trying to scramble from the high school gym.

It’s only once she’s outside that she locks everyone in, and starts fires using sprinklers and exposed electrical wires. She then blows up gas mains and petrol stations, electrocuting townspeople who have come to gawk, leaving chaos in her wake before heading home.

But she does make one, final attempt to connect with God before she does so – stopping at a church in order to pray for help.

"She prayed and there was no-one answering," the book reads. "No one was there – or if there was, He/It was cowering from her. God had turned His face away, and why not? This horror was as much His doing as it was Hers."

With no response, she leaves, burns over a dozen people outside with a fallen electricity line, before heading home to kill her mother.

7. Carrie didn’t die with her mother – and didn’t want to kill her

In every on-screen version, after years of abuse, Margaret White is Carrie’s last victim. In a final showdown, Carrie kills her mother (often by way of religious iconography in line with Margaret’s extremist Christian views) – but not before Margaret gets a stab in. After that, the house they live in collapses in on them, becoming the pair’s final burial site amid the chaos she’s reigned on Chamberlain.

In the book, Margaret’s death is comparatively tame. When Carrie comes home to kill her mother, she realises Margaret is preparing to kill her, and suggests they both pray to try and end the bloodshed. When Margaret stabs her, Carrie gives her an unaggressive death, using her powers to slow down and ultimately stop her heart on the kitchen floor.

The showdown is also not Carrie’s final vengeance – that’s saved for Chris and Billy, with her totalling their car in the parking lot of the roadhouse they are hiding out in. Carrie still has a kitchen knife in her chest from the run-in with her mother when she commits the act, and shortly after collapses and starts bleeding out from the wound.

She’s eventually found by Sue Snell and dies in her arms, after one last telepathic exchange where the girls come to a mutual understanding about the difficulties in their lives. In a full circle moment shortly after her death, Sue – who fears she could be pregnant – gets her period as she walks away.

Carrie is available now on Prime Video.

Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.