I recently found myself on a Brian De Palma kick, rewatching a bunch of his movies that I had seen before but not in many years. De Palma movies are visual and stylistic feasts – for every plot hole or nitpick you encounter, you are rewarded many times over by his filmmaking craft. Even when he dives into pastiche - as with Body Double, his Hitchcockian double feature of Vertigo and Rear Window – he doubles down with something insanely unique. Like a Frankie Goes to Hollywood music video dropped into the middle of the picture.
So it was with great anticipatory joy that I punched up Carrie to rewatch last week. The stage had been set spectacularly for it, too. The film is going to turn 50 in November. There is yet another adaptation of Stephen King’s classic 1974 novel out in the wild, this time in the form of an Amazon Prime Video series set in the present day, where horrormeister Mike Flanagan delves into the real-world terrors our kids face growing up with in the social media age. And putting all that aside - it’s just a phenomenal horror movie. I am sure you all know the particulars of the plot – adolescence, bullying, fanaticism, telekinesis. The movie delivered as ever – the searing performances, the shocking set pieces, the unspeakable cruelty dripping from like blood from the ceiling. But something changed for me on this viewing. And that was in the midst of all of the aforementioned cruelty, there was one beacon of kindness throughout the film – Betty Buckley’s gym teacher Miss Collins. I realize it’s a 50-year-old film, but spoilers abound from here on out, so please take this off-ramp now, go watch it and come back if you’ve not already seen it.
Carrie White was a stand-in for all of us in some ways – show me an adolescent without at least some insecurities, and I’ll show you a sociopath. Carrie was bullied, harangued and played for a fool. Her telekinetic rampage at the end was pretty cathartic to watch as a teenager. It wasn’t hard for us to envision our high school foils suffering a similar fate when we were Carrie’s age and deriving at least a little twisted satisfaction from it. But like with so many other things, life and experience can shift our perspectives. One example I always point to is the film Pet Sematary, which I found so cool and subversive as a teen, and so reprehensible and repellent as a parent. Kids in high school can be awful, and while John Travolta’s Billy Nolan seemed to be a truly evil kid, perhaps beyond redemption, who knows if Chris Hargensen (played by the great Nancy Allen) might not have turned things around as she got a little older?
Carrie’s immolation of Billy’s 1967 Chevy Chevelle made sure we’d never find out.
Had it been thirty years later, Chris might have bumped Regina George for leadership of The Plastics. Chris was focused on some of the things that matter deeply to some high school kids – prom, popularity, position. As one of the ringleaders of Carrie’s locker room humiliation, she received Miss Collins’ ultimatum – onerous extra calisthenics or loss of prom privileges. In a fit of pique, she chose the latter and lost her prom ticket. Chris didn’t turn inward or become reflective, the way Sue Snell did. She was out for blood. Pig’s blood, to be sure. And so she and a few others conspired to thoroughly embarrass Carrie in front of the whole school, which they did – and Chris ended up as a charcoal briquette.
But we all know life goes on after high school. With years of life experience, responsibilities, and bills – so many bills! – high school seems like a tempest in a teapot when put in the rearview. In the book, her father is a wealthy lawyer who wields influence, indicating Chris really is the kind of kid who got everything she wanted, with a heavy dose of immaturity permeating everything she did. Her evil act may have been borne more from being denied her senior prom than from her stated hatred of Carrie White. We all knew people like this, and the last time I checked a lot of them are now working as middle managers at big corporations with families and struggles of their own. Gosh, she might have even apologized at the high school reunion!
But as much as I wonder if Chris may have someday had a shot at redemption, Miss Collins is the one person that I can’t stop thinking about after this rewatch. Let us not forget that Carrie’s actual mother, played to perfection by Piper Laurie, was a fanatical monster, so Miss Collins was Carrie’s proxy mama bear. Like any parent, Miss Collins stood up for, encouraged, and supported Carrie. And like any parent, she could also get frustrated with her behavior. Ms. Buckley conveyed all of this with a tough yet tender performance, becoming the most consistent source of warmth throughout. While Sue (Amy Irving) tries to atone for her misdeeds by setting up Carrie to have a dreamy prom night (and look how that turned out!), Miss Collins consistently walks the walk and forms the movie’s moral center.
In King’s original 1974 novel, the gym teacher was named Rita Desjardin. I read the novel a very long time ago, but as memory serves her character arc is essentially the same as Miss Collins’. Initial frustration with Carrie (including the locker room slap!) followed by a fierce, maternal protection. And like Miss Collins in the film, Rita is present at the prom night massacre and tries to protect both Carrie and the other students. The key difference? Miss Desjardin lives and Miss Collins doesn’t. It’s utterly heartbreaking. And it was infinitely more so for me on this rewatch.
Because while Carrie was a stand-in for adolescence, maybe Miss Collins is a stand-in for parenthood. I won’t belabor all of the ways in which she was caring and nurturing. But anyone who has a child will see Miss Collins and get it. Kids don’t always realize when their parents are doing what’s best for them – Carrie White saw some events, imagined others, and went berserk. Miss Collins was caught up in that kaleidoscopic hallucination and got crushed with a backboard. (As an aside – I couldn’t help but wonder if Carrie chose this particular method to dispatch the one kind person in her life as a particularly cruel twist, since not too long before, Miss Collins shared that her prom date was captain of the basketball team.)
All of this is to say that Miss Collins deserved better. Parents are human, parents are flawed, but parents will go out of their way for their child’s best interests. A parent shares their children’s highest highs and their lowest lows – all of which we saw unfold in the gymnasium for Carrie. And there is nothing like a child’s rage at their parents when they think they’re being wronged. Most of the time, and with the passage of time, all gets resolved with hugs and understanding. At Bates High prom night, it got resolved with a backboard to the gut.
For her part, Ms. Buckley lobbied De Palma to let Miss Collins survive, as her counterpart in the book did. In a 2026 interview with BuzzFeed, Ms. Buckley said, “I actually campaigned to Brian – I said that Miss Collins is Carrie’s champion and shouldn’t die.” De Palma in turn explained that in Carrie’s mind she was being betrayed by everyone, resulting in the legendary “they’re all gonna laugh at you!” montage (parodied so memorably by Adam Sandler on his debut comedy album in 1993). The obvious implication: killing Miss Collins would provide far more emotional heft to the scene. Mission accomplished, I’d say.
As a teenager, I saw villains doing monstrous things and getting their just desserts. As an adult, I see young people doing very bad things before they have had a chance to become somebody else. As a teenager, I saw a well-meaning teacher get taken out in the rampage. As an adult, I saw a deeply caring individual trying to help a teenager, only to have her intentions tragically misunderstood. Carrie turns 50 this November and somehow it hasn’t aged a day. The cruelty still lives on, and even in our interconnected world, the isolation can sting more than ever. Chris Hargensen wasn’t ready to be saved. Miss Collins could not save Carrie.
All any of us can do is show up, stand in the gap, and do our level best for our kids.