10 Best High School Horror Movies
3. Carrie
And you thought the Prom Night cast had it rough...
Picture the worst prom possible. Now throw in a bucket of pig's blood, the raucous laughter of the whole school and a venue that goes down in flames. Brian De Palma's seminal Stephen King adaptation takes the pain of high school cruelty and ramps it up to eleven. Bullied relentlessly by her peers, Carrie White's (an Oscar-nominated Sissy Spacek) first period signals an additional development for the hapless youngster: telekinesis.
The level of torment Carrie is subjected to throughout the film is plain harrowing. Meek and dejected, she receives zero support from her religious fanatic mother (Piper Laurie). After spending her whole life as a punching bag, Carrie finally gets the upper hand when a young John Travolta and friends humiliate her one too many times.
Embracing her burgeoning powers, Carrie's revenge is a classic, endlessly referenced moment in cinema. Drenched from head to toe in blood (a visual very effectively used in the film's promotional materials), her climactic assault on everyone who crossed her still packs a punch forty four years later. An early example of the high school horror genre, Carrie is one of the most influential films of all time.