Mike Flanagan’s Carrie is at 84% on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest score of his TV career
First reviews suggest Mike Flanagan’s Carrie is struggling on Rotten Tomatoes — though the picture isn’t quite so straightforward.
Here we go again, another Stephen King adaptation — and this time, it’s Mike Flanagan at the helm, putting his own spin on Carrie for Prime Video. Now, if you’ve been watching Flanagan’s career, you’ll know expectations were pretty high. The bloke’s built a decent track record with King, and his horror telly’s had critics in raptures more than once. So, what’s going on with this latest outing?
Carrie lands on Prime Video on 7 October 2026, with all eight episodes available from day one.
Reviews and Scores: Not Quite Top of the Class
If you’re wondering how Carrie is faring with the critics, well, not quite as top-tier as Flanagan’s usual. The series is sitting at 84% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 39 reviews so far), which, let’s be clear, is still a respectable score, but it is actually Flanagan’s lowest-rated show to date. To put it in perspective, his previous projects like The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, and The Fall of the House of Usher all managed to edge out slightly higher praise. So yes — lowest yet for him, but still plenty better than what a lot of other series manage. Might be a bit of a ‘glass half full’ situation.
A New Take on Classic Horror
So what’s he done with the story? Well, this isn’t just a scene-for-scene remake of King’s original. Flanagan’s Carrie pushes into the characters and themes with a bit more depth, bringing things up to date for a 2020s audience. Still at the core, though, is Carrie White herself, the infamous outcast who discovers her telekinetic powers after relentless schoolyard bullying — which, by the way, always made me side-eye American high schools.
- Summer H. Howell takes on the title role of Carrie White
- Main cast includes Samantha Sloyan, Siena Agudong, Alison Thornton, Joel Oulette, Josie Totah, Arthur Conti, Thalia Dudek, Amber Midthunder, and Matthew Lillard
- Guest appearances from Michael Trucco, Crystal Balint, Kate Siegel, Rahul Kohli, Tim Bagley, and Heather Graham
- Flanagan directed half the episodes himself (four out of eight)
- He is also acting as both showrunner and executive producer, teamed up with Trevor Macy and Stephen King himself
Interestingly, the episode titles have already given away quite a bit about what fans should brace for, but I’ll leave those for the real obsessives to go hunt down.
Flanagan’s Ever-Expanding King Universe
If it feels like Flanagan’s name is popping up everywhere lately, you’re not imagining things. On top of Carrie, he’s just wrapped directing The Life of Chuck (another King adaptation), and he somehow found time to write Clayface, a horror feature tied to the DC Universe. Oh, and he’s currently in charge of next year’s The Exorcist: Martyrs. Either he never sleeps or he’s cloning himself in the back room.
For those keeping tabs, this new Carrie mini-series is dropping all at once, giving you the option to binge every last moment of telekinetic chaos as soon as it hits Prime Video in October 2026.
Read more: Disney has rescued the Sam Raimi horror film Netflix sat on for five years