I’m seriously wondering if there’s a more anti-Christian movie than “Carrie.” I saw it once many years ago. In fact, I’ll be honest. The reason I watched it on cable was because I saw that the star of “The Greatest American Hero” was in it. And I thought that show was the bomb.
What? I was a kid. But I remember “Carrie” watching it and thinking that 1) it was pretty bad.
Now, maybe it was the first to do all the things that are so common in movies now but to me it seemed pretty clichéd even then.
2) Amy Irving was very cute. What?
3) I thought that it was THE most anti-Christian movie I’d ever seen in my life. Now, admittedly my life at that point wasn’t too long but still, I’m still trying to think of a movie that works harder to make Christians seem totally wacko.
It’s kinda’ weird in that the book’s author Stephen King is a Christian. I know he’s a liberal and all but he’s a Christian. He recently reportedly said, “If you say, ‘Well, OK, I don’t believe in God. There’s no evidence of God,’ then you’re missing the stars in the sky and you’re missing the sunrises and sunsets and you’re missing the fact that the bees pollinate all these crops and keep us alive and the way that everything seems to work together.”
I never read the book. And when I was about twenty I pretty much ready everything by Stephen King. Except Carrie. I’d seen the movie and just had zero interest. And I saw the movie about the killer car “Christine” and still read the book so you know my standards were pretty low. It could be the book isn’t as anti-Christian but I don’t care enough to find out.
The reason I bring this up is because “Carrie” is getting remade and it seems just as anti-Christian as the original if you see the trailer. I’m not going to link to it because it looks like exactly the same movie. I think this is like the third time this movie is getting remade. It seems to me that Hollywood likes this movie a lot more than actual people do.
But I’m interested. Do you guys know of any movie that’s more anti-Christian than “Carrie?”
October 8, 2013 at 11:07 am
I've read the book and seen the (original) movie and I never regarded either as particularly anti-Christian. Anti-one, particular insane, fundamentalist Christian (Carrie's mother), maybe, but not anti-Christian in general. There are much more anti-Christian and anti-Catholic works out there, too many to list.
King himself has said (in a book he wrote on how he became a writer) that Carrie's mother was loosely based on an actual woman he knew before he became famous, who constantly badgered him about whether he was "saved" and lived in a run-down trailer home with an enormous, gory crucifix hanging in her living room, even though she was not Catholic. I guess people like that do exist — or did in rural Maine back in the 1960s at least.
Elaine
October 8, 2013 at 12:43 pm
I also did not find it 'anti-Christian'. Carrie's mother is portrayed less as 'Christian' than as mentally ill in her fanaticism.
She kind of reminds me of the man in our town who constantly does mass mailings of books and pamphlets, with passages underlined that are aimed at damning the Catholics and everyone who is not fundamental in their beliefs. When money is tight he simply stands at the post offices and hands them out. I can see him being just like Carrie's mom towards his wife and children although I have no idea if he has either. Frankly he scares me.
October 8, 2013 at 3:27 pm
Dogma?
October 8, 2013 at 4:13 pm
Hollywood will use the title and make it the most of anti-christian movies.
October 8, 2013 at 4:19 pm
I have neither read Carrie or seen any of the films, but Happy Feet was one of the most anti-Christian movies that Christian parents let their kids watch over and over. I will never forget the scene where the penguins come across the scary man village (terrifying music and all) and the very first building they see is a church complete with a cross on top. By the time the part with the "great Penguin in the sky" came along I was wondering why my local Catholic school was showing this for movie night.
October 8, 2013 at 5:39 pm
read the book and saw the movie…I can see why you'd think that initially…but agree with other commetners that it was more portraying a fundamentalist whacko than really being more anti-christian. I guess if the only example of religion in a book/movie is the fundamentalist whacko…then it could seem like it's bashing all christians. but I took it more like she was just mentally ill and it manifested in that way.
October 8, 2013 at 6:00 pm
I didn't get any "anti-Christian" vibe from the book or the original movie. What I got was a seriously mentally disturbed abusive twisted mother. Just because someone waves a bible in the air doesn't mean they are Christian or talking/acting Christian.
JMO
October 8, 2013 at 10:14 pm
I read Carrie and anti-Christian never occurred to me. Carrie's problem was that her mother was a nut and that she was the designated victim of the mean girls. King wrote the book in part from memories of watching the unpopular girl at his high school and because of a scary encounter with the mother of one of his students when he taught high school.
October 8, 2013 at 10:26 pm
Agoura was pretty bad. I had to turn it off. To be honest with you, I had read some review but wanted to see anyway.
I never got anti christian from either the movie or the book. Carrie's mother clearly had some mental issues.
And, Amy Irving was cute before her plastic surgery.. So there…
October 9, 2013 at 3:25 am
Afraid I'll have to agree with most of the others here that the character isn't a blanket swipe at Christianity. King's early writing career coincides with the rise and peak of the Oral Roberts/Jim Bakker style of televangelist, and for some reason that particular type of Christian seems to have scared the daylights out of King (guess everybody's afraid of something, huh). As a result, a lot of his works have a version of Carrie's mom in them. For recent stuff, check out The Mist and Under The Dome, both of which feature an over the top, cartoonish version of an evangelical for whom things end badly. It's just a trope he lazily uses a lot.
Now as for the new film version of Carrie coming out this month, I've got a bad feeling it's going to be the one that lapses into true anti-Christian territory. The clips I've seen so far featuring Julianne Moore as the mother shows her taking a much more "serious" approach to the character than Piper Laurie did in the original. I just don't trust the activist Moore not to turn the role into an anti-Christian screed. We'll see. I'll probably have to review it for my reviewing gig over at Aleteia, so I'll definitely help spread the word if that turns out to be the case.
October 20, 2013 at 6:35 am
In the new version, Carrie actually quotes Scripture while arguing with her mother (who believes that marital sex is still a sin). And she is compared to Samson.
You can see my review here if you care to read more: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/october-web-only/carrie.html
December 12, 2022 at 10:33 am
I agree Carrie is very anti-Christian, like many other movies that portray Christians as fanactic, lunatic people.
Many in the comments are missing the point that they don’t do it directly, otherwise their intention would be too blatant and they would lose the chance to covertly influence people’s (including Christians) perception about Christianity and religion in general.
But when the only Christian character in a movie is a fanactic freak, then it’s clear the movie is anti-Christian, as if it was saying: “Look, look how dangerous are these irrational beliefs, what they can create.”
Although recently the movies are becoming more and more blatant in their anti-Christian crusade, in general, if you expect to see a movie clearly saying it, you’ll wind up thinking that Hollywood loves Christians.
Sometimes it seems people are expecting the movie to literaly say “Christians are bad” to conclude it has anti-Christian propaganda in it.