Mike Flanagan is a filmmaker who is clearly inspired by a litany of vast and varied influences. The name that most people probably most closely associate with Flanagan these days is Stephen King, the iconic horror author whose work the filmmaker has now adapted numerous times, with more on the way.
But beyond King, Flanagan also channels influences from other filmmakers across the spectrum of cinema, including everyone from Michael Curtiz (he included characters going to see Casablanca at the theater in Doctor Sleep) to Bob Fosse (whose All That Jazz is a film Flanagan has called a “masterpiece” and cites as his personal favorite film of all time.)
But another filmmaker who has had an undeniable impact on Flanagan’s work is none other than John Carpenter.
Much like King, Carpenter’s is a name that has become synonymous with the horror genre over the past few decades. The filmmaker made an entire collection of classic genre films, many of which were infamously not acclaimed or properly respected upon release. But now, years later, it has become increasingly apparent to all that Carpenter was and is a master of his craft, and one can see the influence of his work in the majority of modern horror projects.
The unexpected They Live reference in Carrie
Flanagan has never been a stranger to channeling Carpenter as an inspiration, but Carrie takes things to a new level with a cheeky Carpenter-related reference in its first episode. That reference is to Carpenter’s 1988 film, They Live, and it’s pretty cool.
Flanagan’s new Carrie TV series for Prime Video makes a couple of big departures from King’s original source material, most notably in its updating of the setting. The original novel was published in 1974 and the most iconic and enduring cinematic adaptation of it (the Brian De Palma-direct, Sissy Spacek-starring film) was released just two years later, anchoring the pop-cultural connotation of this story thoroughly in ‘70s sensibilities.
But Flanagan’s take on the material updates the story to 2026 in vital and occasionally prescient ways. Social media is a huge part of the story, school shooting drills are part of the regular routine, and perhaps most notably, the effects of Chris Hargensen’s bullying on various students of the school takes on a newfound prominence.
In fact, in a very Mean Girls-esque twist, there’s an entire section of episodes of Carrie where Hargensen is pretending to be Carrie’s friend to her face, while slandering her anonymously online. In this way, the presence of one of the iconic faces of the They Live aliens is a great ominous warning of what is to come for audiences.
They Live is a movie about a secret society of alien monsters posing as the richest members of human society, dictating the decisions of the underclass via subliminal messaging and thought control. In Carrie’s first episodes, one of the teachers has a mask of the They Live alien monsters on their desk, with a pair of goggles on it.
It’s a great little reference to one of Carpenter’s most astonishing films (if you haven’t seen They Live, you should; it rules) but it also manages to tie Carrie to it in an interesting thematic way.
Much of Flanagan’s Carrie is about duality; about the ways in which these characters project to one another and the differences between who they are externally versus who they are internally. They Live riffs on these same ideas, and placing this Carpenter reference here was a great call on Flanagan’s part.
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