Prime Video is letting the critics do the talking. A new promo reel for Carrie stacks early review quotes right on screen, and the message is unmistakable: Mike Flanagan’s take on Stephen King’s classic is winning people over. The eight-episode series premieres October 7 on Prime Video.
The reel leans on two of the buzziest lines so far. SlashFilm’s Bill Bria called the show “relevant, reverent, & surprising,” writing that any doubts he had “vanished just a few minutes in.” And Mama’s Geeky’s Tessa Smith declared that Summer H. Howell is “PHENOMENAL” as Carrie White. Both critics caught the first two episodes at early screenings in July, and both walked out dying for the rest.
What seems to have won skeptics over is the modernization itself. Flanagan moved the story into the social media age, where Carrie’s public humiliation snowballs into a viral bullying scandal. Discussing Film’s Tyler Taing called it “a true modernization focusing on teenage anxieties and the cycle of violence in our digital age,” a big departure for both the source material and Flanagan’s reputation as King’s go-to adapter.
Then there are the performances. Bria found Howell “heartbreakingly great,” while Smith’s full review of the first two episodes calls her “nothing short of brilliant,” capturing both Carrie’s intense vulnerability and the tragedy of her isolation. And Samantha Sloyan’s Margaret White is getting her own wave of praise. Where the original film’s Margaret was purely brutal, Flanagan’s version acts out of what Smith describes as “intense, fiercely protective love,” a choice that makes her terrifying in a completely new way. JoBlo’s JimmyO put it simply: “Samantha Sloyan is fantastic.”
The extra room of an eight-episode season is doing real work too. Smith notes that Chris Hargensen, a one-dimensional villain in earlier versions, gets a genuine inner life here, and the show keeps circling Prime Video’s central question: are we watching the making of a hero, a monster, or something more complicated? Her verdict: a 10 out of 10 and “a brilliant modernization of an iconic story.”
As TDN reported earlier this week, the countdown is officially on. All eight episodes of Carrie arrive October 7, only on Prime Video.