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Carrie White’s peers don’t know much about her, but they do know that they don’t like the plain, socially awkward girl who lives alone with her odd mother. Now seniors at Ewen High School in the small Maine town of Chamberlain, most of Carrie’s peers have gone to school with Carrie for years. During that time, they have continually tormented her with cat calls and pranks, and their teasing comes to a tipping point one day in the locker room after gym class when Carrie starts her period and is oblivious to that fact. The girls pounce on Carrie’s weakness and taunt her with their cruel words while showering her with a rain of feminine products.

When Carrie learns what menstruation is and that all women experience it, she becomes angry with her mother, Margaret White, who has withheld this information even though Carrie is sixteen years old. On this same day, Carrie also learns that she is telekinetic, which means that she has the ability to move objects with her mind. She has a dim memory of having done this before, but the sudden onset of her period fully unleashes this power along with the memories of her childhood and the time that she made stones rain down upon her house. Carrie’s peers don’t know that she has the gene for telekinesis, or TK, but Margaret has long suspected that her daughter possesses the “devil’s power.” Margaret constantly watches for sin in her daughter and in others and has brought up Carrie to do the same. She educates Carrie on the sins of womanhood on the day that Carrie gets her period.

The fallout from the incident in the locker room has consequences for the other girls, who must attend a week of detention or forfeit their tickets to the upcoming Spring Ball. The ringleader, Chris Hargensen, is furious when she loses her tickets and seeks revenge on Carrie. Sue Snell, another girl who joined in the jeering, feels remorse about her role in it and enlists her boyfriend, Tommy Ross, to ask Carrie to the prom as a gesture of apology. Sue plans to stay home on prom night.

After Tommy asks Carrie to the prom and she accepts, Chris enlists her boyfriend, Billy Nolan, to help her formulate and execute her plan for revenge. Chris sneaks a look at the seating plan for prom and finds out that Tommy and Carrie are on the ballot for King and Queen. Billy and his friends travel to a local farm where they slaughter two sows and drain the blood into two buckets.

Margaret is furious that Carrie is going to prom and appalled by the sexy red dress that Carrie has made for herself. She and Carrie fight but Carrie uses her TK to keep her mother at bay. When Tommy picks Carrie up, he tells Carrie he is dazzled by her beauty. At the prom, Carrie comes out of her shell enough to talk to some new people and enjoy herself, and when she and Tommy win prom King and Queen, she allows herself to enjoy that victory as well.

When Tommy and Carrie are onstage being crowned, Chris pulls a rope that is connected to the two buckets of pig’s blood balanced in the rafters. The contents of the buckets pour all over Tommy, Carrie, and the stage. One of the buckets comes down and hits Tommy in the head, knocking him unconscious and ultimately killing him. All the students laugh at Carrie as she stands on stage covered in blood, and she runs out of the gym, humiliated. A few moments later, the doors to the gym slam shut, and some people see Carrie’s smiling face looking back at them through the glass. In a fit of rage, Carrie uses her TK to turn on the fire sprinklers and loosen the electrical wires in the gym. Students are electrocuted and some burst into flames.

Carrie heads into town where she dismantles several fire hydrants so the school fires cannot be put out and unlocks the pumps at the gas station. Not long afterward, the school explodes. Before Carrie heads home, she loosens the electrical wiring along the streets, killing several people in town. All the while, she has been broadcasting a telepathic message to the townspeople that she is responsible for the chaos and death. At home, Carrie finds Margaret waiting for her with a butcher knife. Margaret believes Carrie is possessed and plunges the knife into Carrie’s shoulder. Carrie uses her TK to slow the beating of Margaret’s heart until it stops.

Chris and Billy had gone to a roadhouse outside of town after the buckets fell, but when they learn of the destruction in town, they race around to cover their tracks. They don’t get very far before they see Carrie, who flips the car they are driving into the wall of the roadhouse where its gas tank explodes. Sue Snell, who has been following Carrie’s trail since she saw the school explode, finds Carrie unconscious in the roadhouse parking lot. They speak to each other using only their minds, and Carrie realizes that Sue was not part of the prank and is innocent regarding Carrie’s humiliating experience. Sue stays with Carrie in the final moments before Carrie’s death.

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