The 3-Act Paradigm at Work: Carrie

written by Lawrence D. Cohen


Carrie, based on a Stephen King novel, is a story that combines the chills of a horror story with the sensitivity of its theme, the revenge of a likeable teenage girl on the brink of her womanhood.

Structural Analysis

  1. The Hook (1 min.)
    • Carrie is ostracized in a volleyball game at school.
  2. The Complication (3-4 min.)
    • Carrie bleeds in the shower at school - her first period. She has no idea what has happened, her mother being a religious kook. She is teased to tears.
  3. Call to Action (26 min.)
    • Learning she has a strange power to move objects (9, 17 min.), Carrie studies about the occult in the library.
  4. Act One Plot Point (36-7 min.)
    • A teacher helps Carrie create a better self-image for herself. A popular boy wants to take her to the prom.
  5. Midpoint Plot Point (47 min.)
    • Carrie stands up to her mother and will go to the prom.
  6. Act Two Plot Point (74 min.)
    • Carrie is led into a cruel trap - falsely elected prom queen in order to be dunked on stage with an overhead bucket of blood.
  7. Resolution (76-89 min.)
    • Carrie turns loose her powers, burning down the school and killing her mother before the mother stabs her. But Carrie then perishes in the collapse of her home.

Notes

Carrie uses the suspenseful device of letting us, the audience, know what Carrie doesn't know. We see the bucket of blood set up and in place, we know what is bound to happen - and the suspense is waiting for it.

We care for Carrie, which makes this movie more than a genre piece. She is real and her troubled background is real - and when she turns loose havoc upon the world, we understand why she is doing it.


MODULE 4: SCREENWRIGHT: the craft of screenwriting

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