In the movie once referred to in the New Yorker as "film noir in red," the terrifying mysteries of the female interior are brought to the forefront in a veritable hubris of menstruation. In DePalma's characteristic style, film frames become gaudy comic-book panels as blood drips on, through, and around the adolescent Carrie. Her telekinesis goes hand-in-hand with her excessive bleeding as a manifestation of what is scariest about women: the powerful forces hidden within them. (However, the dangerous naivete and violent frustration of Carrie and her hysterically religious mother are sufficiently frightening without supernatural interference). Some see Carrie as a vindicating hero for all social outcasts in this prom-night revenge story, but how comforted are we? Her mother angrily insists that women are evil; menstruation, a curse from God. Ultimately, and perhaps unwittingly, DePalma suggests that mother knows best.-Erika Katz