When Sissy Spacek was preparing for her character, she isolated herself from the rest of the ensemble, decorated her dressing room with heavy religious iconography and studied Gustave Doré's illustrated Bible. She studied "the body language of people being stoned for their sins," starting or ending every scene in one of those positions.

Stephen King's name is spelled "Steven King" in the trailer.

The original network TV version opens with an alternate pan across the girl's locker room with most girls wearing at least bras and panties - Nancy Allen is naked but covers herself with a towel. There is a mid-scene dissolve and some brief additional slow motion in a sloppy effort to re-sync the soundtrack, because this shot was shorter than the original one. This alternate take of the shower scene was shot specifically for the network television version of 'Carrie'. Also notable during this sequence, the on-screen credits are white (instead of red) and centered on the screen. Most profanity, especially during the scene with John Travolta and Nancy Allen arguing while he is driving, is re-looped to remove bad language. However, alternate, non-profane takes are used when Travolta and Allen are stopped in a parking lot just before the oral sex scene (which of course is deleted). In recent years, this print of the movie has vanished from circulation.

Edited into Squirm (1976)