In Mike Flanagan’s eight-part reimagining of Carrie, the school’s principal is under siege, teachers feel abused, and Carrie White faces cruelty delivered through cellphones and anonymous Instagram accounts. The series brings Stephen King’s 1974 story into the present day, moving schoolyard torment online while keeping the school’s hierarchy in view.
Power in the Schoolhouse
Mr. Grayle, the principal played by Matthew Lillard, is under siege. Teachers such as Miss Desjardin, played by Amber Midthunder, feel abused. The account doesn’t explain who is besieging the principal or what has happened to the teachers, so there’s no basis for filling in those blanks. The hierarchy is clear; its precise conflicts aren’t.
Carrie White, played by Summer H. Howell, is the new kid at school. The mean girls remain cruel, but now they have cellphones, social media and anonymous Instagram accounts to torment her. The tools have changed. The target hasn’t: a student with less power in the school’s social order. Online anonymity becomes one of the means of harassment, while Carrie’s position as the new kid leaves her facing a hostile environment with little knowledge of how life works beyond it.
Carrie knows almost nothing about life outdoors, let alone online. That contrast matters. Other students use social platforms against someone unfamiliar with them, and the story places the imbalance in the details it provides rather than claiming to show how the harassment ends. It doesn’t describe any response from Carrie, the teachers or the school.
Old Story, New Instruments
Released in 1976, the original film was the first adaptation of King’s work. It marked a breakthrough for Sissy Spacek and a Brian De Palma masterpiece, built from elements of the American psyche, including religious devotion, body horror, psychic phenomena and class distinction. Flanagan’s present-day version reimagines the 1974 story as an eight-part series, with social media and anonymous accounts now aiding the school’s cruelty.
The account says the series was made with Mr. King’s blessing. That approval frames the production as a reimagining of his story, not a different account of who holds power among the students. The changes it identifies are specific: a present-day setting, cellphones, social media and anonymous Instagram accounts. The mean girls remain cruel, and Carrie remains the new kid who knows almost nothing about online life.
The account describes no election, legislative fix, grassroots organizing, mutual aid or institutional helper. It doesn’t report what the school does about the torment, whether anyone intervenes or how Carrie responds. What it does show is a familiar ladder of power: a student isolated by her lack of knowledge, classmates equipped with tools to torment her, and teachers who feel abused while the principal is under siege. The series moves that conflict into the present. The account leaves the consequences—and any answer beyond the school’s existing order—unreported.