Editorials
‘Alone’: ‘Shutter’ Follow-Up Delivers Eerie Tale of Survivor Guilt [Horrors Elsewhere]
Horrors Elsewhere is a recurring column that spotlights a variety of movies from all around the globe, particularly those not from the United States. Fears may not be universal, but one thing is for sure — a scream is understood, always and everywhere.
Although Japan and South Korea dominated the import boom of Asian horror circa 2000s, Thailand gained more attention all thanks to one movie. Shutter, the 2004 ghost story about a haunted photographer, put Thai horror on everyone’s radar. And when it came time to follow up on their debut, filmmakers Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom stayed within the same genre, as well as crafted another suspenseful haunter.
Alone begins in South Korea where the protagonist, Pim (Marsha Wattanapanich), now lives with her husband, Wee (Vittaya Wasukraipaisan). After Pim’s surprise birthday party, she receives word about her mother, who has been hospitalized for a heart attack back in Thailand. Pim temporarily relocates so she can be by her mother’s side, but being back home starts to stir up bad memories and unresolved feelings. Until they were fifteen years old, Pim and her twin sister, Ploy, were conjoined. The operation that separated them was not entirely successful; only Pim survived. Pim has quietly lived with the guilt since then, but being back in her homeland, she can only think of Ploy. That shame eventually begins to manifest as visions and apparitions in the corner of her eye. Is this all the work of a troubled conscience, or does Ploy’s spirit actually inhabit her childhood home?
The main inspiration for Alone is undoubtedly the most famous set of conjoined twins, Chang and Eng Bunker. The now-outdated term ‘Siamese twins’ originated with the brothers, who were born in Thailand when it was called Siam. However, Alone is also inspired by a longstanding cultural notion about twinship. Superstitions surrounding identical twins vary from place to place, but one single belief is widespread. Ancient folklore and mythology planted the idea that one twin can be the moral inversion of the other. Later on, the ‘evil twin’ was born and popularized by books, film, and television. While the horror genre is no stranger to the trope, few movies focus on conjoined twins. Even fewer see them as individualized characters free of stereotypes.
Representing polar ends of the morality scale, Pim is always seen as the kind-hearted twin, whereas Ploy is immortalized as the jealous and selfish one. This is a traditional depiction in media; twins are extreme opposites in personality. Even though other stories might reference the yin and yang construct when writing their twins as night and day characters, there is also the complementary element — the twins complete each other — that is absent from Pim and Ploy’s relationship. They were more harmonious in the past, but things changed for the worse once Wee came between them.
The nature of identity is something regularly explored with twins. In Alone, Ploy is seen as the more aggressive and protective sister. She stood up to the bullies who made fun of her and Pim; at one point she hit one of their childhood tormentors square in the face with a rock. So when Wee came along, the twin dynamic was upset. Ploy not only feared losing her role as Pim’s knight, she felt alienated by her sibling’s romance. Being scared of abandonment is one thing, but Ploy’s tactics to keep her sister and Wee apart suggests something else was going on. Something darker.
Pisanthanakun and Wongpoom approach the supernatural aspect of Alone rather differently this time around. In Shutter, the ghost Ananda Everingham’s character sees is less ambiguous in both appearance and origin. Meanwhile, Pim’s mental breakdown is evidenced by visceral and spectral fantasies that may or may not be the work of a restless spirit. She sees horrifying figures just about everywhere she goes; in a mirror, in the bathtub, in the garden house, and inside an elevator. Yet every time something bizarre happens, Wee and a psychologist try to convince her — and the audience — this is only a product of Pim’s guilt complex. The film does its damndest to create an air of doubt surrounding the phantasmal antagonist.
This era of Asian horror was big on overt jolts and scares, and Alone did not shy away from the trend. The frights are pulled off in all seriousness without the intermittent comic relief so common in the directors’ horror output. When there is no ghost action to be found, the movie delivers random and grisly shocks that will not sit well with animal lovers. Alone exudes meanness here and there, and when it wants to, it is plain nasty.
After the sizable twist in Shutter, the audience can expect something similar — but very different — for Alone. Going down the road it takes, though, the movie risks losing its audience. Almost always, Thai horror tends to be about ghosts as opposed to the human killers, zombies, and other villains commonly seen in Western movies. For all intents and purposes, there is an unearthly force at work here, but just as easily, the events can be explained away with a more logical theory.
Alone stokes thoughts of doppelgängers and survivor guilt. Wattanapanich’s performance is unchained, Niramon Ross‘ cinematography surpasses that of her last collaboration with the directors, and the ending takes a turn in the best way possible. The movie does not quite pack the same punch as its predecessor; Shutter hands down wins in terms of reveals. Even so, Pisanthanakun and Wongpoom put together an exceptional sophomore film that deserves a bigger audience and wider distribution.
Five decades ago, Stephen King published the story of a bullied girl with telekinetic powers and forever changed the world of horror.
Carrie follows a high school misfit who seeks revenge for a hideous prank by psychically destroying her senior prom. The name Carrie White has become synonymous with the concept of a formal dance thanks to a flawless adaptation from Brian De Palma. Now fifty years after the film’s release, Mike Flanagan is putting his own stamp on the troubling story.
Rather than a feature film, the writer/director will expand King’s relatively slim debut novel into an eight-episode miniseries for Amazon Prime set to premiere on October 7.
Flanagan is no stranger to the world of Stephen King. A long-time Constant Reader, he first made waves with his daring adaptation of Gerald’s Game (2017), a novel many fans considered un-filmable. His underrated Doctor Sleep merges the disparate plot of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining with King’s original source material, and his 2024 genre-bending tearjerker The Life of Chuck faithfully executes one of the author’s most metaphysical novellas.
He’s currently mired in pre-production for an expansive adaptation of The Dark Tower series, keystone to King’s connected universe, and Warner Bros. recently announced that Flanagan will helm a new version of The Mist, King’s 1980 novella which sees a small Maine town overrun by otherworldly monsters.
Considering the vast array of the author’s previously unadapted material, an obvious question arises. Why reimagine Carrie in 2026? Noting the timeless nature of the content, Flanagan expressed his desire to bring the story of a bullied girl into modern times, mirroring his approach to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. He explained, “The only way to approach it was to build something new out of the ingredients of Carrie. Otherwise, there’s really no purpose in trying to retread ground that’s been so beautifully walked before.”
His miniseries will maintain the novel’s bloody bookends while delivering “big surprises” along the way.
A New Prom Night Nightmare
The roughly 60-second teaser introduces Summer H. Howell as Carrie White just before the moment of catastrophe. Standing in a prom dress, she smiles at her applauding classmates with an ominous crown perched upon her head. Moments later, Carrie unleashes a rage-filled scream into the night air while promgoers rush for the exit doors. But careful examination of this scene shows Carrie wearing a different, albeit dirty dress as she seems to telekinetically punish her peers.
In an exclusive first look with Entertainment Weekly, Flanagan explains that in his version of the story, “the events of that prom are going to be completely different.” An open trunk emitting a crimson glow does hint at the pig’s blood dumped on Carrie’s head, but it’s likely Flanagan’s formal dance will be a different kind of horror altogether. Despite these changes, the series may end with the widespread destruction outlined in the source material. Unlike any previous adaptations, King’s novel ends with the near-total destruction of Chamberlain, Maine. A flaming street in Flanagan’s trailer promises similar carnage no matter what prank sparks Carrie’s deadly revenge.
The Monstrous Addition of Social Media
On the opposite end of this fiery conclusion is an extreme act of bullying that brings together the story’s main cast. King’s novel begins as Carrie gets her first period while showering in the girls’ locker room. Completely unaware of the concept of menstruation, the sheltered girl thinks she’s bleeding to death. Her classmates respond with vitriolic rage. Led by ultra-mean girl Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton), they mock the terrified teen while pelting her with tampons. Glimpses of this disturbing event reveal that Flanagan has excised the scene’s nudity while adding a seismic update. As Carrie sobs in the shower stall, Chris and her friends film the breakdown with their phones.
Other scenes note the presence of social media, bringing King’s fifty-year-old story into the digital age.
Flanagan’s adaptation promises to explore the destructive power of social media, an often invisible entity with a potential for harm rivaling Carrie’s own powers. While King’s tormented heroine suffers in front of a small group of girls, Flanagan’s version of the incident will likely become a viral video, potentially circling the globe on social media. Similar to Katt Shea’s criminally underrated The Rage: Carrie 2, which includes elements of revenge porn exploitation, Flanagan’s modern retelling will distinguish itself by exploring the nebulous cruelty of online bullying, a force ten times more powerful than the irl pranks King first envisioned.
A Completely Reimagined White Family
In addition to modernizing these canon events, Flanagan hints at updates to Carrie’s oppressive upbringing at the hands of her mother, Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan). Dead before the novel begins, we never meet Carrie’s domineering father Ralph, known to carry a bible alongside his gun. Flanagan’s White household will be an altogether different beast. In his version of the story, Carrie and her mother have been hidden away in the unassuming home, forced out of hiding by Ralph’s unexpected death. Perhaps we will finally meet this elusive man whose shadow hangs over his wife and child. Considering the White family’s fundamentalist lifestyle, this reimagining hints at tradwife culture and a home ruled by staunch patriarchal control.
Whereas King’s Carrie has been tormented by her classmates since Kindergarten, Flanagan’s Carrie will be a wide-eyed newcomer to public school, eager to make friends and engage with her peers. We glimpse Carrie cozying up to Chris and the equally popular Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) as she navigates a new social scene. Of course, we know this kindness is part of an elaborate plot designed to lull Carrie into a false sense of camaraderie, setting up an atrocious act of public humiliation. These brief moments of feigned compassion put Sue’s own complicity into question. Will Flanagan’s version of the character find the courage to defend Carrie from vicious bullies or will she succumb to peer pressure and join in the mob mentality?
Perhaps the biggest deviation from King’s original text is the relationship between Carrie and her mother. King’s Margaret White is a horrifically abusive religious zealot whose worldview has been hardened by internalized misogyny. She shames Carrie for menstruating, locks her in a closet to “pray,” and regrets not killing her child in infancy. She’s also responsible for Carrie’s social ostracization. Known to berate her neighbors for their “sins,” Margaret forces her daughter to live by an extreme code of conduct and disallows any potential friends lest they corrupt the girl with their worldly ways.
Flanagan’s version of the character is perhaps just as much a victim as Carrie herself. Also trapped inside her home, his Margaret is overly vigilant, her own trauma manifesting as strict control. Describing a more sympathetic depiction of the iconic villain, Flanagan explains, “Our Margaret White is a woman who fiercely loves her daughter and wants to protect her from this world … [She] doesn’t know how to do that and thinks the way to protect her is to close her off; not punitively, but to create this private utopia.”
Despite this potential softening, Sloyan’s Margaret may still have a sharp edge. Though she has appeared in many Flanagan projects, from Hush (2016) to The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), she is best known for her role as the abhorrent Bev Keane in the poignant saga Midnight Mass (2021). Perhaps inspired by King’s Margaret White, Bev is pious and sadistic, willing to punish anyone who does not adhere to her warped approximation of Catholicism.
Flanagan specifically wrote Margaret with Sloyan in mind, likely remembering the actress’s eerie ability to create deceptive empathy and shift our allegiances on a dime.
Expanding Stephen King’s Telekinetic Universe
While most of King’s story deals with an unthinkable prom night in Chamberlain, Maine, large sections of the semi-epistolary novel see experts debating the nature of telekinesis. Do Carrie’s frightening abilities represent a new phase in human evolution or is the prom night carnage merely a fluke? King settles the debate with a shocking denouement in which a young mother recounts her infant daughter’s ability to dangle her crib toys in midair. We’re left to wonder if she will become another tormented girl who surprises the world with metaphysical strength.
Flanagan plans to build out this brief scene while amplifying themes of female empowerment. After introducing our main cast of characters, episode two will open with an unrelated story in which we meet another girl with the TK gene. Each subsequent chapter will expand this world, building out a roster of telekinetic young women. Considering King’s fondness for stories about powerful kids, often described as possessing “the shining,” Constant Readers will no doubt have their eyes peeled for various Easter Eggs nodding to the author’s vast catalogue.
Giving Carrie Her Own Voice
Perhaps the most striking distinction in Flanagan’s new trailer is the extent to which we hear Carrie’s voice. The sneak peek is fully narrated by the titular prom queen as she demands accountability. “I want to know why,” she explains while detailing Chris’ elaborate plan. Aside from the aforementioned coda, King’s book essentially ends with the aftermath of the prom night tragedy, leaving little time for Carrie to reflect. His shifting narrative does bring the reader into her fragile mind, though not before she’s been cowed by relentless cruelty. We watch Carrie sink into bloodthirsty revenge, but never hear a considered desire for justice or repair.
Flanagan’s original monologue allows Carrie to voice her pain and mourn the life she could have had. We’re also treated to a mug shot-style photo of Chris with a bruised and bandaged face, implying that the mean girl will have to answer for her senseless sadism.
Flanagan is known for filling his series adaptations with heartwrenching speeches that cut to the heart of his thematic intentions, and this teaser seems to follow suit. After years of fans, critics, and scholars analyzing Carrie’s pain, perhaps his modern retelling will offer the titular anti-hero a chance to finally speak for herself.
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