Margaret White is a strange woman with despotic, fanatical religious beliefs that she instills into her daughter Carrie. Carrie herself is a frumpy teen who does not really get along with her mother, or anyo=body else; she is bullied at school and is the frequent target of teasing and public ridicule in the town of Chamberlain, Maine, where she lives. Carrie has her first period whilst showering after a physical education class, and is terrified because she has no idea what is happening to her. Her mother will not talk about anything relating to the intimate parts of the human body and so Carrie is completely uninformed about her own changing body and puberty.
Chris Hargensen, a wealthy and extremely popular girl in her class leads her classmates to torment Carrie over the incident. They throw tampons at her and humiliate her completely. Rita Desjardin, her gym teacher, tries to explain what is happening to her whilst she helps her clean up.
Carrie develops a strange ability on the way home; she realizes that she is able to control objects from a distance away.
At school the following day, Ms Desjardin punishes the girls who bully Carrie with a week of detention. If they do not attend detention they will be suspended from school and banned from the upcoming prom, which is exactly what happens to strident Chris when she leaves. Chris sends her father, an odious and influential attorney, to the school to get her prom privileges reinstated, but he is unable to, so Chris makes up her mind to get revenge on Carrie whom she sees as responsible for her punishment.
Sue Snell is also popular at school, but unlike Chris, feels guilty about the way she treated Carrie, and persuades her boyfriend to invite Carrie to prom instead of her. Carrie is wary, but nonetheless accepts the offer and makes a prom dress for herself. Chris, meanwhile, persuades her boyfriend Billy to find two buckets-worth of pigs' blood so that she can put her plan of revenge into action.
At first, Carrie's prom experience is very positive. Tommy is a very gentlemanly date, and his friends are very welcoming to Carrie. Tommy, for his part, is genuinely attracted to Carrie. Chris rigs the election for Prom King and Queen; Carrie and Tommy win the voting, but as they are crowned, Chris, from outside the prom, dumps the pigs blood on their heads. She accidentally drops one of the buckets, which hits Tommy hard in the head, and kills him in minutes. The image of Carrie drenched in blood provokes laughter from almost all the other attendees, but Carrie is so humiliated that she runs from the building.
Outside, Carrie remembers her new ability and decides to use it to get her own back on her bullies. She hermetically seals the gym from afar and activates the sprinkler system. She also causes a fire which ignites the gym's fuel tanks, exploding the school. Everyone present at the prom is killed. Carrie is so filled with rage that she opens the hydrants that are near the school so that they cannot be used to put the fire out. She also telepathically tells everyone in Chamberlain that she caused this carnage.
At home, Margaret believes that Carrie has been possessed by the devil himself, and that she must kill her ini order to save her. She first tells Carrie that she was conceived from a rape. She stabs Carrie in the shoulder with a kitchen knife but Carrie does not need weapons to retaliate; she stops Margaret's heart using only her mind, and kills her. She then runs to the roadhouse where she believes the rape of her mother took place, and sees Chris and Billy leaving. One of Billy's friends has told them about the explosion at the school and so when Billy sport Carrie, he tries to run her down in the car. Carie telekinetically takes over the car and runs it into the wall of the roadhouse, killing Chris and Billy instantaneously.
Sue Snell has been receiving Carrie's telepathic messages and finds Carrie bleeding to death in the parking lot. Carrie believed that Sue and Tommy had set her up but comes to realize that neither had anything to do with the prank. Just before she dies she forgives Sue. She cries out for her mother as she passes away.
The town of Chamberlain is decimated. The survivors of the night's carnage plan to re-locate elsewhere and although money is allocated by the state for a rebuilding project, nobody wants to stay. Ms Desjardin blames herself for what happened and resigns her position. There is an investigation by a committee who conclude that there will never be another Carrie White; as they do so, a woman writes to her sister about her baby daughter's telekinetic powers and believes that she must have inherited them from her grandmother.
