10 Most Terrifying Women In Horror Movies

Obviously the title character of Stephen King's breakthrough novel is plenty scary all on her own - but while she may have the telekinetic gifts and the emotional imbalance to put them to homicidal use, Carrie remains a deeply sympathetic character. The same cannot necessarily be said of her mother, Margaret.

As if our hearts aren't already breaking for our young protagonist when we see how ostracised and put-upon she is at school, it only gets worse when we see what she has to live with at home: emotional and physical abuse from a fanatical religious puritan fixated on sin, who hates her own child for the simple fact that she is a teenage girl, filling her up with guilt, shame and fear.

While Carrie has been filmed twice since Brian DePalma's original (casting Patricia Clarkson as Margaret in the 2002 TV movie and Julianne Moore in the 2013 version), Piper Laurie's initial turn in the role is definitive, and still chilling more than 40 years on.