Carrie

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General		Extras
Category	Horror	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1 - 1.33:1 non-16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0 mono
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	No
Year Released	1976	Commentary Tracks	No
Running Time	93:57 minutes	Other Extras	Booklet (6 page)
RSDL/Flipper	RSDL (64:39)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	2,4	Director	Brian DePalma
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Sissy Spacek John Travolta Piper Laurie
RRP	$34.95	Music	Pino Donaggio

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	No	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16x9 Enhancement		Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 5.1, 448 Kb/s) German (Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, 384 Kb/s) French (Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, 320 Kb/s) Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, 320 Kb/s) Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, 384 Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	Yes
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired German French Italian Dutch Swedish Finnish Norwegian Portuguese	Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    If you haven't seen the movie before, here's the plot: A young, timid and shy Carrie (played perfectly by Sissy Spacek) has her first (and belated) female-only bodily movement in the school showers, and is teased ruthlessly by her peers. To her aid comes a caring teacher, who punishes the girls for their unthoughtful behaviour. Meanwhile, Carrie must suffer her insane and super-religious mother who is clearly off her rocker, so to speak, and is the root cause of Carrie's odd ways. Her mother (Piper Laurie) thinks that everything shy of breathing is a sin, and walks around crying, chanting and generally being hysterical about everything. Then, for the first time in her life, Carrie is asked out on a date - to the end-of-year prom no less, and eventually accepts. However, at the prom she is once again turned on by the other school-girls and things get nasty. Carrie has always had telekinetic powers, and they get used to full effect in the final scenes.

    Whilst the scare value of this movie has diminished over the years, it still has its moments, and Sissy Spacek is just brilliant and really makes the movie. John Travolta, on the other hand, is lousy and it is a wonder that he is listed as a "star." His part is small, and his acting is non-existent. I am surprised he got any more work after this. William Katt, on the other hand, has a very large part and is indeed very good as the high school teenage heart-throb who takes Carrie to the prom. If you like classic Stephen King, then this is your movie.

Video

    The image is on the soft side, and is not especially clear or detailed. It would seem that the transfer is quite old, since it lacks the vibrancy of modern efforts. Also to its detriment is the lack of anamorphic enhancement, which severely reduces any hope of much detail. Had this movie been touched, restored and given the proper treatment, I have no doubt it would improve immensely. What we have here is a lacklustre presentation that simply isn't up to scratch, and was obviously the cheap option for MGM. Shadow detail was definitely on the poor side, with many night-time scenes suffering for it. There was no low-level noise.

    Colours were a little on the muted side, which dated the look of the movie. Whilst their was no chroma noise, there was oversaturation of reds and blues in the final scenes of the movie during the prom. Blues were particularly badly rendered, looking very washed-out.

    There were no MPEG compression artefacts during the movie, nor were there any film-to-video artefacts. This is perhaps one of the best non-16x9 transfers I have seen with regards to aliasing problems - there simply weren't any. After a while, I forgot I was watching a non-enhanced transfer because of the lack of this tell-tale sign. Film-to-video artefacts were present during the opening of the movie, but settled down and never imposed on the rest of the film.

    This disc is RSDL formatted, with the layer change occurring during Chapter 23 at 64:39 minutes. This placement is very good, and is not intrusive at all. I am just surprised a movie this short would need to be RSDL at all, but I am not about to complain.

Audio

    Dialogue was at all times clear and easy to understand.

    Lip-syncing was not a problem during the movie.

    The score, by Pino Donaggio is rarefied, with much of the movie being in silence apart from dialogue. When it does appear, it is suitably jarring and typical of its time. The music is surprisingly clear and spacious sounding, with a wide soundstage which is doubtless due to the 5.1 remastering.

    The surround channels were used aggressively, and stunningly well at times. If you closed your eyes, you could almost imagine this to be a recent movie.

    The subwoofer was used mildly and to good effect.

Menu

Theatrical Trailer (2:02)

    Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, non 16x9 enhanced and in Dolby Digital 2.0 mono.

Booklet

   A good read, with some good information. I can only laugh, however, when the booklet boasts that this DVD has been "encoded to take full advantage of high resolution "widescreen" television sets." Of course it hasn't, since it is not 16x9 enhanced.

    The video is a disappointment given that it is not 16x9 enhanced, however it holds up quite well.

    The audio has been upgraded to 5.1, and is very good, however a mono soundtrack for the purists amongst us would have been welcome...

    A theatrical trailer is all the extras you need, according to MGM.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall