The creepy tale of telekinetic teen Carrie has come back to haunt us all over again.
Everybody's talking about the viral-video prank perpetrated upon unsuspecting coffee shop customers in support of the upcoming horror-movie remake Carrie, opening in theaters on October 18.
The original 1976 film version of Carrie was based on a Stephen King novel and starred Sissy Spacek as a shy high-schooler blessed (or cursed) with telekinesis, the ability to move objects with the power of her mind. Carrie's story ends badly and bloodily at the school prom.
In the second update of King's unsettling novel (there was already a 2002 remake), Chloe Grace Moretz assumes the Carrie role and since the story is already a twice-told tale, the latest version's studio, MGM, needed a gimmick to get people to see it.
MGM reached out to the viral-video marketing company Thinkmodo, which imagined a hidden-camera prank involving a Carrie-like customer wreaking havoc in a New York café.
Titled "A Telekinetic Surprise in a Coffee Shop," the video runs two minutes and 24 seconds and opens with a crew installing fake walls and other special-effects trickery in a West Village café before it opens for business.
Then, the on-screen text declares, "Time to f–k with some customers." And so the horror begins.
A man walking through the café bumps into a table and accidentally knocks a large cup of java onto the notebook and laptop computer of a female customer. She is not pleased and shrieks, "Oh, my God! You've ruined all of my stuff!" The other customers begin to take notice of the developing scene.
And while the other customers are watching, the irate female roars, "You know what? Just get away from me!"
With that, she gestures dramatically toward the man, who is thrown backward and then rises upward on the café wall to the point where his head is nearly touching the ceiling.
The reason to watch the clip stems entirely from the understandably aghast reactions of the other café customers. Some scream out loud, several shrink back in horror, and a New York workman takes a step backward and stares with mouth agape.
After the woman lowers the man to ground level, she stares at her hands, astounded by her apparently newfound telekinetic ability, which she employs again by making all the tables and chairs in her vicinity quickly slide away from her. Any customers eyeing the exit before then make a break for the exit.
And there aren't that many customers remaining after the young woman lets out a blood-curdling scream that somehow knocks all the framed pictures off the walls and causes books to come flying off the café shelves.
The video closes with a fleeting shot of the bloodied Carrie from the upcoming movie and the Twitter reference #FlexLikeCarrie.
Since being posted on YouTube late Sunday, the video has generated more than 3.7-million views.