We always knew Carrie’s prom was gonna be messy.
In the finale of Prime Video’s “Carrie,” Chris and Billy rig the voting system to ensure that Tommy and Carrie win Prom King and Queen. And when Carrie reaches the stage to accept her crown, that’s exactly when all hell breaks loose, starting with a big ol’ bucket of blood.
After being drenched in a pig’s bodily fluids (R.I.P., piggy), Carrie’s telekinesis kicks into high gear as she tears down some scaffolding that accidentally kills Tommy. But once she lets Emaline take control, the women unleash on Carrie’s classmates, flipping tables, starting fires, and ultimately electrifying almost everyone in the building.
Recreating such an iconic scene was “the most difficult sequence of my career,” showrunner, writer, and director Mike Flanagan tells TVLine in the video above. But on the second day of the long and challenging shoot, the “Carrie” boss took some time to appreciate the moment.
“I slowed down just enough to look around and realize exactly what you were talking about,” he said, after his interviewer gushed about the story’s iconic climax. “We took a moment and said, ‘Everybody, put your work down, just drop what you’re what you’re doing and just stand still. Take a breath, look around, and just for a second, can we all just acknowledge that we’re at the prom with Carrie White.'”
Summer H. Howell isn’t exactly sure how much (fake) blood she was drenched in every single day, but says it felt like it kept increasing “by the gallon.” But even soaked in crimson, the importance of the moment was not lost on her.
“It was wild. It was a fever dream,” she recalls. “It was two weeks being in that building with everybody, so [many] background performers and stunts and special effects that don’t always go right because we’re trying to make it practical. Just a lot of chaos, but controlled, and very fun, very sticky.
“I had to rely on other people a lot,” she remembers. “I did a lot of sitting with my fingertips, just not knowing what to do because it’s literally all over me. Every morning, I would stand in the blood tent and just get it applied to me. Our makeup team was incredible.”
Flanagan adds that the sequence, which called for hundreds of extras, 12 principal characters, and a lot of rapid-fire action, was “remarkable,” and “so crazy.”
“Fire, water, blood, stunt work, rigs, tables flying, people flying through the air… We built this whole set just to destroy it systematically,” he says. “But it’s an incredible sequence, and it was so much fun to be part of and do our version of the prom. That was the other thing, just being very aware that we’re not going to top De Palma at doing ‘Carrie’ the prom, so let’s do something else. And that was very freeing.” (See what Matthew Lillard, Amber Midthunder, Alison Thornton, and the rest of the cast had to say about the prom by pressing PLAY above.)
This story originally appeared on TVLine
