Mike Flanagan’s television adaptation of “Carrie” arrives on Prime Video Oct. 7, and the newly released trailer gives the clearest look yet at how the horror director is reworking Stephen King’s 1974 novel for eight episodes rather than a two-hour film. The clip opens on Carrie White, played by Summer H. Howell, entering a classroom for the first time after a childhood of homeschooling, only to be mocked immediately by classmates for her homemade clothes and unfamiliarity with teenage social codes.
The footage builds toward the novel’s infamous locker-room scene, where Carrie gets her first period and, believing something is seriously wrong with her body, panics as classmates film the moment and post it online. That digital humiliation, rather than the shower scene alone, drives much of the trailer’s tension, reflecting Flanagan’s decision to filter King’s story through the mechanics of viral bullying and smartphone culture. As the video spreads, Carrie’s telekinetic powers visibly intensify, and the trailer closes with her crowned at a school dance, a moment familiar to anyone who has seen Brian De Palma’s 1976 film or its two subsequent movie remakes.
Samantha Sloyan plays Carrie’s mother, Margaret, a role Flanagan has said will carry more psychological complexity than earlier adaptations. The ensemble includes Siena Agudong as Sue Snell, Alison Thornton as Chris Hargensen, Joel Oulette as Tommy Ross, Josie Totah as Tina, Arthur Conti as Billy, Amber Midthunder as Miss Desjardin and Matthew Lillard as Principal Grayle, with recurring guest turns from Flanagan regulars Kate Siegel, Rahul Kohli and Heather Graham.
King himself serves as an executive producer on the series, which Flanagan created, wrote and showruns. Early reactions from critics who screened the first two episodes in July described the adaptation as a departure from both the source novel and Flanagan’s own catalog, with several noting he had reshaped the father’s backstory, given Margaret more nuance and expanded the story’s scope beyond the small town of Chamberlain, Maine.
The new series marks the first attempt to translate “Carrie” into a long-form television format, following adaptations in 1976, 2002 and 2013. Whether audiences accustomed to De Palma’s Sissy Spacek performance will embrace an eight-hour reinterpretation remains the open question hanging over the show’s October debut.
