‘Carrie’ Trailer Brings Stephen King’s Horror Classic Into the Social Media Age

Stephen King's Carrie has always been a story about the devastating consequences of cruelty, but Mike Flanagan is bringing that cruelty into a very different world.

Prime Video has released the official trailer for its upcoming Carrie series, giving viewers their most extensive look yet at Flanagan's eight-episode reinvention of King's 1974 novel. Summer H. Howell takes on the title role of Carrie White, with Samantha Sloyan playing her fiercely religious and protective mother, Margaret.

The new trailer immediately establishes one of the biggest changes to the familiar story. After spending her life homeschooled, Carrie enters public school and finds herself completely unprepared for the judgment and cruelty waiting for her. When the infamous locker-room incident occurs, her classmates don't just torment her in the moment, they pull out their phones, record what is happening and put it online.

Carrie's humiliation can now follow her everywhere.

It's a particularly fitting update to King's story. Bullying was already central to the original novel, but Flanagan's version places Carrie in a world where an embarrassing or traumatic moment can become viral content before someone has even had time to process what happened. The trailer shows the video spreading as Carrie's telekinetic abilities begin to grow stronger, connecting the familiar supernatural horror to the pressures of being a teenager in the social media age.

That doesn't mean Flanagan is abandoning the elements that have made Carrie endure for more than 50 years. The trailer still builds toward the school dance and the image almost everyone familiar with the story knows is coming. Carrie is shown standing onstage wearing a crown, suggesting that the series is still headed toward that fateful night even as the journey getting there expands considerably.

Prime Video has described the series as a reinvention that deepens the characters and tensions of King's novel. With eight episodes to tell the story, the adaptation has considerably more room to explore Carrie and the people surrounding her than a feature film, including the everyday decisions and acts of kindness or cruelty that ultimately push the story toward its devastating conclusion.

Howell leads an ensemble that includes Siena Agudong as Sue Snell, Alison Thornton as Chris Hargensen, Joel Oulette as Tommy Ross, Josie Totah as Tina, Arthur Conti as Billy, Thalia Dudek as Emaline, Amber Midthunder as Miss Desjardin and Matthew Lillard as Principal Grayle.

Flanagan serves as writer, showrunner and executive producer while also directing four of the eight episodes. Stephen King is also an executive producer on the Amazon MGM Studios production. The project continues Flanagan's long relationship with King's work following adaptations including Gerald's Game and Doctor Sleep.

There have been multiple screen versions of Carrie over the decades, most famously Brian De Palma's 1976 film starring Sissy Spacek. Prime Video's adaptation marks the first time King's novel has been developed as a television series, giving Flanagan an opportunity to spend considerably more time inside Carrie's world.

And judging by the new trailer, that world may be even less forgiving when everyone has a camera in their pocket.

All eight episodes of Carrie premiere Wednesday, October 7 exclusively on Prime Video.