Anton Bitel

This is certainly the most stylishly directed of all the sequels. But still, its ironic self-consciousness about how tired its material has become does not ultimately make it any less tired.

Antlers is a slippery, troubling film whose ambiguities, despite one heavy-handed piece of exposition, remain intact even as the film’s identity keeps metamorphosing and body-swapping. Here, the beast within has always been there, lurking and latent as part of America’s constitution, and just waiting to bite back.

Based on Stephen King’s first published novel, from 1974, and in fact the first cinematic adaptation of that well-read author, Carrie dramatises all manner of first times, as Carrie gets her period, falls in love, and is ultimately penetrated, killing – and maybe dy(e)ing – in deep, deep red.

Co-writers/co-directors Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz confound life and art, reality and dreams, sanity and madness in their surreal vision of conservative America succumbing to – or biting back against – the encroaching counterculture.

Modern viewers, raised on decades of gialli and slashers, will have little trouble identifying the shadowy figure whodunnit. But there is still real pleasure to be had in wandering these halls of repressed madness, where everyone seems affected in one way or another by the tragedy of Kathleen.