Acclaimed horror showrunner Mike Flanagan and his troupe of frequent collaborators delve inside their next drama series.

Revisiting King’s first (prom) queen: On set for the Flanafam’s brand-new vision of Carrie (exclusive)

Acclaimed horror showrunner Mike Flanagan and his troupe of frequent collaborators delve inside their next drama series.

By Nick Romano

Nick Romano

Nick Romano is a senior editor at ** with 15 years of journalism experience covering entertainment. His work previously appeared in Vanity Fair, Vulture, IGN, and more.

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September 15, 2026 12:00 p.m. ET

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“And then the world exploded.”

Stephen King prefaced the tragedy of Carrie White’s prom night with these words, so striking and foreboding in the pages of the author’s 1974 horror novel that they imprinted on the zeitgeist.

The iconic moment was only further seared into the collective consciousness after Brian De Palma’s film adaptation (1976) left actress Sissy Spacek forever bloody in our minds.

As Mike Flanagan now attempts a new version of the scene, the modern horror maven knows it’s a high bar to clear.

Summer H. Howell photographed exclusively for EW’s ‘Carrie’ cover shoot.

Gina Gizella Manning

It’s a Monday afternoon in late July 2025 on the Vancouver set of his upcoming eight-episode TV interpretation of *Carrie*.

With flames at her back and screaming classmates at her front, the once shy and reclusive Carrie (now played by Summer H. Howell), covered in pig’s blood from a cruel prank, calls upon her burgeoning psychic powers to enact wrathful retribution on her tormentors.

Only something’s off.

Flanagan isn’t quite happy with the bucket drop, perpetrated by Carrie’s chief bully Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton). As Howell heads back to the “Dexter” tent (an obvious nickname for the blood application station lined with translucent tarps), Flanagan talks through the issue with three of his invited guests who know a thing or two about horror: Bryan Fuller, maker of the 2002 made-for-TV version of *Carrie*; Don Mancini, the director who cast Howell in her first feature film role, *Curse of Chucky* (2013); and Thomas Olde Heuvelt, an author (2013’s *Hex*) championed by the showrunner.

He works through it aloud: There are “so many different kinds of blood.” There’s blood application for the skin, for the eyes, for the hair. There’s also viscous blood, but the material used for this bucket dump is the “wateriest” stuff they have on hand, he says. And right now, in a bird’s-eye shot of the stage, it looks more like paint rather than the slow opening of Hell’s gaping maw.

Then there’s the fire. The crew use three tiers of flame bars behind Howell to spark the inferno that will snake through prom, fueled by the growing intensity of Carrie’s powers. They default to an accelerant when the bars don’t ignite fast enough to hit the action beats.

Timing remains an issue when they shift to film the sprinklers. Detailed in the script, Carrie crushes the spewing water pipes with her mind, but the folks manning the on-and-off switches aren’t yet in sync. It all makes for a laborious process that often results in Flanagan resting his head in his hands as everyone rushes to turn over the set and keep things moving.

Summer H. Howell photographed exclusively for EW’s ‘Carrie’ cover shoot.

Gina Gizella Manning

There are only two cinematic events that the accomplished genre filmmaker considers “the most challenging and elaborate single sequences” of his career thus far. The first is the time-blending oner of *The Haunting of Hill House*, the series that set him on the path to becoming one of the most sought-after horror showrunners of the moment. The other is the prom from *Carrie* (which binge drops Oct. 7 on Prime Video).

The team is two hours behind schedule and, Flanagan says, “hanging on by our fingernails.”

But time (and swag!) heals all wounds.

“We had shirts made for the crew that said, ‘I Survived the Prom,” Flanagan reveals, speaking to ** more than a year after that intense day. “That’s kinda how it went, but we knew that going in. It was so difficult to track all those characters, to destroy our stage — I mean, to absolutely *destroy* it — and to destroy it in the right order, to make sure we got all of our necessary coverage of a moment before we lit it on fire or covered it with blood or destroyed it forever. So, yeah, I remember the stress of the prom very clearly.”

Those days remind Howell of “a fever dream,” one in which Flanagan would often apologize before showering her in fake blood.

“Mike took some time just to get everyone to appreciate the moment and remember where we are right now: ‘We’re in Carrie White’s prom,’” she remembers. “I was happy to see them slow down for a bit and not rush everything too much. Although, we had a lot to do with only so much time.”

Summer H. Howell photographed exclusively for EW’s ‘Carrie’ cover shoot.

Gina Gizella Manning

The events leading up to and during prom night, however, won’t play out as you might expect from a standard book-to-screen adaptation. You can see even in the set how the bones of classic *Carrie* are built into the bedrock, but this is a true TV reimagining: Though the decorations for a Starry Night theme inside the Ewen High School gymnasium harken back to the now-retro aesthetic of King’s novel, set during the spring of ‘79, the sports banners hiding behind the cutout stars and silver streamers note victories for the boys soccer team in 2016, girls volleyball in 2019, gymnastics in 2021, and boys volleyball in 2023.

This *Carrie* is a present-day tale of cruelty, kindness, and the unique challenges of an American teenager in the age of social media. It’s all enhanced by Flanagan, who’s become one of the go-to King adaptors in the business. After *Gerald’s Game* (2017), *Doctor Sleep* (2019), and *The Life of Chuck* (2024) — and with *The Mist* on the way — there’s something enticing about Flanagan taking his cumulative knowledge of the author’s lexicon to revisit King’s very first novel.

“The story of *Carrie* alone has been told now several times,” Flanagan acknowledges. “The thing that’s never been delved into is Carrie’s a part of this larger community of women and she never gets to know that. We have a book that fits perfectly into a 90-minute format. We’re talking about a series. Expansion’s essential. So if that’s the mission, how can we earn it? And that was the crux of it. Let’s understand that this is the story about gifted women. Let’s understand that this is a story about young women, in particular, learning their place in the world and coming into their power — and all the pitfalls that come with that.”

Carrie reborn

Summer H. Howell as Carrie White in ‘Carrie’.

Amazon MGM Studios

In this telling of *Carrie*, our main character is essentially from another time. She spent her life thus far confined within the walls of her family home, raised by her religious mother, Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan), and military-minded conspiracy-theorist father, Ralph (Tahmoh Penikett). Their small two-bedroom house could pass for a set from De Palma’s ’76 film; it’s devoid of most tech and conveniences from the aughts — nothing that could let, for example, the government spy on them, which is a legitimate fear of this family unit.

Sloyan jokes Margaret would make a great doomsday prepper, predicting, “She’d have such a great bunker.”

The state doesn’t even know the mother and daughter exist until social workers arrive at the house in the aftermath of Ralph’s accidental death while working a construction site. Now Carrie enters public school for the very first time, and with the reemergence of formidable telekinetic abilities, her blissful naivety of girlhood and her wide-open heart make her easy prey for physical and online bullies.

Summer H. Howell photographed exclusively for EW’s ‘Carrie’ cover shoot.

Gina Gizella Manning

The first time Howell spoke with Flanagan about the role was a quick call on April Fool’s Day, though she never once thought he might be pranking her with a fake job offer. “It’s a funny coincidence,” she says.

Along with a more in-depth conversation over Zoom, they decided she shouldn’t read the book or watch any previous *Carrie*. For one, so many of the 1,000-plus actors who auditioned failed to stand out, Flanagan says, because they emulated Spacek. It was Howell’s distinct approach that felt right for this interpretation.

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The 22-year-old from Manitoba, Canada, credits her acting coach in Winnipeg. “I usually try to do something a little different,” she says, “bring my own to the character. With Carrie, it was easy to do that.”

Though she was aware of the pig’s blood moment, “I didn’t know about the telekinesis or the bullying or anything,” Howell reveals. “It was just a new story to me. It is for a lot of people my age. So it was just about connecting with the words on the page, how she feels. A big part of my Carrie is that she’s open and curious about the world and wants to experience things.”

Yet, someone like Chris can take advantage of that innocence.

Alison Thornton, Summer H. Howell, and Siena Agudong in season 1 of ‘Carrie’.

Amazon MGM Studios

The popular senior, who feels like her life is falling apart in the wake of her parents’ separation, takes out her pain on the new girl. And in the first of a series of cascading events that lead up to prom night, Chris records a traumatic incident involving Carrie’s first period in the school locker room to create an Instagram account that rocks the entire town.

Humanity feels like the code cracker to the reimagining.

“This is quoting Mike: There are no monsters in the show,” Thornton says. “Everything that Chris does is coming from a place of pain. She doesn’t really enjoy tormenting Carrie. I mean, it feels good in some way. She’s lost her sense of control in the world, and she’s bullying because that’s really the only control she has left.”

Flanagan didn’t want to approach any character with an automatic presumption of villainy, especially Margaret. With Carrie’s mom no longer the same abusive, tyrannical figure of King’s book, Sloyan focused on the undying love of a mother for a daughter. Everything else emerged from that — even her more off-kilter tendencies.

Summer H. Howell photographed exclusively for EW’s ‘Carrie’ cover shoot.

Gina Gizella Manning

“Unfortunately for Margaret, in a reflection of Chris, she’s given all these opportunities to do something differently and she just consistently chooses the act of violence,” Sloyan says. “Even at the end, she’s so confused because her heart breaks for Carrie and she knows that that’s love, but she can’t understand how everything looks the way it does.”

Siena Agudong’s Sue Snell — Chris’ bestie and a rare classmate who takes pity on Carrie’s plight — reflects the audience, in a way. She learns to understand how a teenage girl could act the way that she does, which then calls her own learned behaviors into question.

“I just had to understand a girl who was experiencing kindness for the first time,” the *Resident Evil* series and *Extraction 3 *star remarks. “I feel those feelings quite deeply because kindness has always been something that I’m so in awe of. To play a character where that was her main arc over and over and over again was so truly learning what it means to be kind.”

Summer H. Howell photographed exclusively for EW’s ‘Carrie’ cover shoot.

Gina Gizella Manning

It’s a story that Tim Bagley, playing the warm and understanding school guidance counselor Mr. Morton, finds in short supply.

“Especially now in our collective culture and how we just accept, especially on social media, this kind of brutal cruelty as normal,” he remarks. “I really actually do believe that there is room for kindness and positivity. I try to live my life that way, but my character certainly does in this piece.”

Bagley’s presence in *Carrie* further helps answer a pressing question from longtime “Flans” (fans of Flanagan). How can one make *Carrie* into an entire TV series? It’s a remix. Like Mr. Morton, a minor character from King’s novel (an assistant principal) now expanded and recontextualized.

Flanagan speaks on that subject from his L.A.-based “Flanaplex,” a private home theater filled with treasures from his various projects, including Victoria Pedretti’s Bent-Neck Lady costume from *Hill House* and Sloyan’s religious garb from *Midnight Mass*. (There’s a Flanaplex North location in Vancouver housing Howell’s *Carrie* prom dress.) It comes with a private Instagram account he says you can only follow if you screened something there.

Carrie White (Summer H. Howell) is crowned prom queen on ‘Carrie’.

Amazon MGM Studios

Lounging among the reclining seats, Flanagan says he didn’t want to do *Carrie* at first. The tale remains one of the shortest of King’s full-length novels to this day, though there are bits of the book never utilized in the adaptations we’ve seen. That’s namely all the interlude chapters — police reports, 911 calls, courtroom transcripts, newspaper clippings, and scientific research into the telekinetic gene that collectively teases a larger world.

Even with all that, “The book gave us maybe 90 minutes of material,” the showrunner notes. “How do we fill in the rest?”

The Stephen King whisperer

Summer H. Howell photographed exclusively for EW’s ‘Carrie’ cover shoot.

Gina Gizella Manning

“He texted me at the airport to ask me to let him know when I made it home safe,” Flanagan recounts of his commute after screening *Doctor Sleep* for King in the author’s home city of Bangor, Maine, in 2019. That’s the kind of relationship the two genre auteurs have nine years after Flanagan first adapted the literary giant’s work with *Gerald’s Game*.

The filmmaker is well aware of his reputation as a Stephen King whisperer, at least in the eyes of the business. His first communication with the horror icon was through agents after the success of *Gerald’s Game*, based on the 1992 work. Their first phone call was to discuss adapting *Doctor Sleep*, King’s sequel to *The Shining*.

King feels more like “Uncle Steve” to Flanagan, and the industry knows it.

“I get approached pretty frequently when people have the rights to a King property,” he says. That was his suspicion when conversations began with Amazon. It’s a reputation he’s determined to protect — “to the point that I have no issue whatsoever turning down a King project if I don’t think I’m gonna be able to execute it in a way that’s gonna make Steve very happy or me very happy.”

Summer H. Howell photographed exclusively for EW’s ‘Carrie’ cover shoot.

Gina Gizella Manning

For years, Flanagan seemed far more interested in getting his long-brewing idea for a TV epic based on King’s *The Dark Tower* off the ground. That, Flanagan vows, is still “very much on the table,” but Amazon already had a show in mind for Flanagan’s kickoff project.

To his own surprise, he found a take for *Carrie* that fulfilled his personal requirements. “Creatively, it really kicked something off that I didn’t expect,” he adds.

That take emanated from a simple fact: A lot has changed since King wrote his first novel. There’s a whole literary multiverse that now binds many of his stories that didn’t exist at the time of *Carrie*. It was through intuition and weaving together that expanded mythology that intrigued everyone involved in the new TV drama, including King, who’s an executive producer.

Summer H. Howell photographed exclusively for EW’s ‘Carrie’ cover shoot.

Gina Gizella Manning

“Carrie’s abilities aren’t named, really, in the book. He calls it ‘the TK gene’ for telekinesis, but if Steve had written this just a little later, Carrie White would have ‘the Shining,’” Flanagan muses, referring to the psychic abilities from the novelist’s book about the haunted Overlook Hotel.

“Carrie White might be pursued by the Institute,” he continues, referencing the secret government organization tracking psychics in the 2019 work of the same name. “Carrie White, depending on how these universes are connected, would have arrived on the radar of the True Knot” — the group of vampiric nomads that feed on “steam,” the life energy released by torturing children who have the Shining to death. (See *Doctor Sleep*.)

Each episode of *Carrie*, beginning with the second, will speak to the main character’s place within that larger world through opening vignettes that depict a different woman with extraordinary abilities from different time periods.

Using Flanagan’s own logic, though, could *Carrie* eventually become a backdoor entry point to his long-brewing *The Dark Tower*, if it were to continue for multiple seasons?

Summer H. Howell photographed exclusively for EW’s ‘Carrie’ cover shoot.

Gina Gizella Manning

“I may have asked this very question several times along the way,” he replies, laughing from all the implications. “It’s certainly not impossible. There are characters in the *Tower* canon who would serve a very specific purpose in that story, who audiences wouldn’t necessarily recognize because they only exist in certain books.”

He thinks specifically of *Insomnia*, King’s 1994 tie-in. “Carrie White could achieve the same narrative purpose pretty cleanly,” he continues. “You could say the same, though, of Abra Stone [from *Doctor Sleep*], you could say the same about Danny Torrance [from *The Shining*]. How the various Stephen King worlds can connect is always on my mind.”

Flanagan is getting ahead of himself now. A lot would need to happen for that future to fall into place. For now, his priority is making *Carrie* feel like a proper, satisfying season of television.

A Flanafam-ily reunion

Prom attendees, including Josie Totah’s Tina, before all hell breaks loose on ‘Carrie’.

Amazon MGM Studios

Back in Vancouver, fake blood slow-drips off Howell’s ear as the makeup squad surrounds her with spray bottles for reapplications on set. Her slim, white dress now appears wholly red. A previous take completely knocked her crown from her head.

The young star keeps her arms locked and angled away from her torso (think *Weapons*) to prevent her limbs from sticking to her wardrobe. The only place she can safely sit down is a single chair stationed at one of the prom tables on the gymnasium stage that’s covered in another tarp. The other seats are all chained to the table for when Carrie sends everything in the room flying.

Howell will stay in this sticky state all day. But, much like her character’s optimistic worldview, she seems unfazed by any work hazard.

“I would shake your hand, but…” Howell remarks before trailing off. “It’s the hardest it gets.”

Summer H. Howell photographed exclusively for EW’s ‘Carrie’ cover shoot.

Gina Gizella Manning

An audience begins to crowd in to watch her next take. Among those present is Kate Siegel, Flanagan’s wife and longtime collaborator from their days on *Hush* (2016) and *Oculus* (2013). The two married in 2016 and named their first child together Theo, after Siegel’s character in *The Haunting of Hill House*. With her now playing an undisclosed role, *Carrie* marks her tenth time acting in one of Flanagan’s projects.

Sloyan, who’s on her seventh collaboration with Flanagan with the character Margaret White, is also present, though neither are on the call sheet for the day. They just want to support their fellow “Flanafam” members — and catch a glimpse of the carnage to come.

The term Flanafam, a nickname for Flanagan’s troupe of frequent collaborators, began making the rounds in the Netflix era of *Hill House* and *Bly Manor*. “Flanaverse” became another popular moniker, though Flanagan confessed during a 2024 Emerald City Comic-Con panel, “I don’t love it. It’s a weird word.”

Summer H. Howell photographed exclusively for EW’s ‘Carrie’ cover shoot.

Gina Gizella Manning

“It’s the hardest it gets,” says Howell, covered in blood on set.

Gina Gizella Manning

Those on the inside were initially compelled to make fun of it. “Mike was pushing for ‘Flavengers’ for a really long time,” Siegel recalls. “When we were starting to put a show together, he would send out an email or a text that said ‘Flavengers Flassemble.’”

But over time, Flanagan embraced Flanafam as his preferred term. “It feels way more like a family than some kind of shared universe,” he reasons. “I thought at first it was a little cringe, but I’ve grown to really have affection for it.”

Every filmmaker has the actors they like to work with, but there’s something about this collective that still resonates with people. Part of it is they rarely miss…some would argue they’ve *never* missed. Even *The Midnight Club*, which was canceled after one season when Flanagan left Netflix, still garnered a substantial viewership. If you ask the man himself, Flanagan feels it’s a testament to working with people he loves.

Summer H. Howell photographed exclusively for EW’s ‘Carrie’ cover shoot.

Gina Gizella Manning

While working on *Midnight Mass*, Michael Trucco (who plays Chris Hargensen’s bullish father in *Carrie*) felt it “without a doubt” — which he credits to the sequestered nature of that production, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. “The setting of the island could not be more perfectly metaphoric for what we were,” he reflects. “We were in our own bubble making this television show when the world was shut down and everybody was isolating themselves.”

The cast of *Carrie* is a true who’s who of this Flanafam. Purely based on everyone’s number of Flanagan-helmed productions, Siegel and Sloyan are the most seasoned veterans on this particular set. After *Carrie*, they’ll both appear in the Scarlett Johansson-led *The Exorcist: Martyrs*. At one point, they joked about merit badges to mark the amount of projects they’ve done. But, no, Sloyan says, “I can’t earn platinum status.”

Rahul Kohli (playing a Ewen High teacher) and Trucco are up there, as well; *Carrie* marks six collabs for both of them. Crystal Balint now has four under her belt (*Midnight Mass*, *The Midnight Club*, *The Fall of the House of Usher*), while Matthew Lillard (*The Life of Chuck*) and Katee Sackoff (*Oculus*) are now in the two-timer’s club.

Summer H. Howell photographed exclusively for EW’s ‘Carrie’ cover shoot.

Gina Gizella Manning

Lillard (playing Principal Grayle) remembers a walk-and-talk with Flanagan about this very subject when the actor invited him to the set of *Five Nights at Freddy’s 2*.

“He said, ‘You’re now in the Flanafam,’ and I was like, ‘I don’t even know what that means,’” the *Scream* and *Scooby-Doo* alum recalls. “And he said very clearly, ‘I’m gonna ask you to do everything that makes sense for me and you to do. You don’t have to be in everything. You don’t have to say yes. I will never hold it against you. You don’t have to worry about your schedule. I just want you to know that you’re part of this family and I want you to be a part of my moviemaking experience.’”

Siegel recognizes *Carrie* as the first time that Sloyan now becomes “the beating heart of the Flanafam. She’s been working forever, and it’s amazing to see her finally get to step into the spotlight. And she just devours it.”

Summer H. Howell photographed exclusively for EW’s ‘Carrie’ cover shoot.

Gina Gizella Manning

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Agudong was admittedly “very intimidated” coming into this kind of setting. “You do see how close he gets to his cast and you see how much everyone cares about each other,” she says. “You walk into a family like that, you hope that you will be able to feel the same way walking away.”

It helps that Flanagan always seems to have a number of different projects in the works. After *Carrie* is *The Exorcist: Martyr* (Sloyan agrees it’s “one of the scariest things that he’s done” and also “visually gorgeous”), *The Mist* (his approach to *Carrie* informed his decision to go off book when adapting King’s haunting short story), Henry Cavill’s *Warhammer 40K* series (which he describes as “just a mountain” of a show), and (eventually, hopefully) *The Dark Tower*.

It’s work Flanagan enjoys doing. When writer’s block holds up one thing, he pivots to one of the others. Though five at once, including *Carrie*, may be his limit. “I feel responsible for the Flanafam, for my actors, for my writers, for my crew,” he says. “So there’s an enormous gravity to keep working when the opportunities exist, because it’s not just me who benefits from the work. And I love it. I wanna be back on set with these people again as soon as possible.”

Summer H. Howell photographed exclusively for EW’s ‘Carrie’ cover shoot.

Gina Gizella Manning

Ask any of the new blood and they’re in, especially if what’s next is anything like their set experience on *Carrie*. Thornton mentions Flanagan’s fart machine. Not an app, but a physical machine stationed on set that set off auditory flatulence to help break the tension during dramatic scenes.

“It was a classroom scene,” she recalls. “We heard a fart and we kinda kept going, but then we heard another fart and were like, ‘Someone’s doing this.’”

Agudong became a target while filming the premiere, during which Chris picks up Sue for school. “I take a massive bite of a burrito and it just rips in the back,” the actress recalls. “And then it rips again when Alison takes a bite.”

Summer H. Howell photographed exclusively for EW’s ‘Carrie’ cover shoot.

Gina Gizella Manning

The show’s leading lady was in on it, at one point manning the trigger during a kiss between Sue and her boyfriend Tommy (Joel Oulette). “That was the most nerves I’ve felt on the set, which is stupid because it’s for a fart machine,” Howell admits. “My heart was beating so fast…and then it literally didn’t work the first time.”

Apparently, it’s not all blood and telekinetic terror on the set of *Carrie*.

“It’s a horror show,” Agudong says, “but it’s a Mike Flanagan horror show.”

*Directed by Alison Wild + Kristen Harding*

*Photography by Gina Gizella Manning*

***Motion**** - DP: Maddie Leach; 1st AC: Corey Cave; Gaffer: Bailey Clark; Best Electric: Maile Edwards; SLT: Xiaoming Liang; Key Grip: David Gonzalez; Best Grip: Daniel Kusendal; Grip: Hank Bolton; Grip: Amos Trujillo; PA: Isaac Harris*

***Production Design**** - Production Designer: Isaac Aaron; PD Crew: Phillip Bowen, Charlotte CaHill, Kimberly Nguyen, Krystall Schott*

***Photo**** - Gaffers: James Swartz, Romel The Cheese; Camera Assistant: Fernando Ponce; Digital Tech: Mikey Santillan; Movement Director: Judson Emery*

***Post-Production - ****Editor: Jordan Moran;**** ****Color Correction: Nate Seymour/TRAFIK; VFX: Derek Viramontes; Design: Anne Latini; Sound Design: Kristen Harding*

***Summer H. Howell ****- Styling: Katya Netter/The Wall Group; Styling Assistant: Valerie Tronolone; Tailor: Martin Zepeda; Hair: Joseph Chase using Amika & Dyson/Exclusive Artists; Makeup: Akina Shimizu/A-Frame Agency; Manicure: Steph Stone/Forward Artists*

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Horror”