. CARRIE (1976)

The 1976 version of Carrie is an American supernatural horror film based on Stephen King's 1974 novel of the same name. The film was directed by Brian De Palma and written by Lawrence D. Cohen. 

The opening scene, is filmed with a tracking shot categorised as the male gaze. The male gaze occurs when the camera puts the audience into the perspective of a heterosexual man. It may linger over the curves of a woman's body, for instance. The woman is usually displayed on two different levels: as an erotic object for both the characters within the film, as well as for the spectator who is watching the film. The woman is passive to the active gaze from the man. 

This first scenes pretty irregular for a horror film because of it's use of the male gaze, we observe a large group of young women in two lights presented from a heterosexual males point of view- as sexual objects but also as bestial creatures, acting mean and pack like. Due to the fact that the opening scene is filmed using the male gaze, we can interpret that the representation of the menstrual cycles start for young girls and  menstrual blood is seen as horrendous, this however is a typical male view. The character of Carrie White appears pure, and this is emphasised by the activity of 'washing' herself in a sexual manner which also feeds into the heterosexual males obsession. The over sexualisation of this female character then contrasted by her fear of menstrual blood could show us, as the audience the loss of purity of females in society due to them becoming a woman - as Carrie then becomes strong, angrier, she learn about her powers and uses them for self defence but also evil and therefore become just like the other girls in her class. She become malicious, angry, and evil.

The opening scene correlates with the revenge scene because of the use of blood. However the revenge scene used pigs blood - this is seen as just as dirty as menstrual blood in some religions and this is important because of the religious theme in the film. The use of the rich red blood connotes evil, and death - which reminds us that Carrie is not the heroin of the film, and much like the other girls in the film she is just as evil. Her character contrasts extremely with her last name 'White' as it connotes purity and an angelic nature and with Carrie denouncing her faith she begins to loses all of her purity. The loss of her purity relates to the use of blood seeping down her leg during the shower scene and in the prom scene also, as with the loss of purity being smudged by blood a darker side of Carrie is revealed.