Stephen King‘s Carrie was a landmark for the horror genre, both as a novel and as Brian De Palma‘s iconic 1976 film starring Sissy Spacek. The story follows a shy, sheltered teenager whose latent telekinetic powers erupt after years of relentless bullying and abuse, unleashing mayhem, murder, and massacre in a single moment of rage. For outsiders who had experienced cruelty and humiliation themselves, Carrie White’s fury struck a powerful chord, capturing feelings of anger and isolation that many understood but could never act upon.

Modern horror master Mike Flanagan has taken the reins of Prime Video’s new spin on King’s classic story, which is, at over 50 years old, still rings true in this day and age in terms of harassment and intimidation. But according to Flanagan, the tools of bullying have vastly changed over the years, and thus, a new Carrie was almost necessary.

At Prime Video’s “Meet the New Class of Carrie” panel at San Diego Comic-Con, director, writer, and professional scaremaster Flanagan, along with the cast of Carrie, explained why it was time for a remake, and the unorthodox means he took to capture the absolute horror of Carrie White’s situation.

“I think bullying has changed a lot in the 50 years since this novel was written,” said Flanagan to the Ballroom 20 crowd. “The other thing, though, is our understanding of the cycles that create that kind of behavior has also evolved quite a bit.”

“I do think that, though, that bullying can take many, many forms,” Flanagan explained. “We brought several high school students into the writers’ room to ask if they would share their experiences and the things that they dealt with in these shocking one-off situations, or just the constant kind of treatment, microaggressions that don’t necessarily immediately present themselves as the kind of targeted harassment as they really are.”

The Haunting of Hill House director continued: “And so this kind of whole world of what it really means to be cruel in today’s world, how the internet has encouraged that kind of cruelty — rewards it, celebrates it, amplifies it — and lets it hide behind anonymity. This is awful for adults to deal with, much less for forming adults, for teenagers, and younger kids who are also dealing with this. And frankly, in my opinion, look at what that kind of cruelty has sculpted out of the world in the last couple of decades. Look at social media, the internet, and our disconnection from each other- ironically, as we have all been so connected- and how that has changed the shape of the world we live in.”

“What bullying means, what it looks like, and why it happens were things we really wanted to explore. I learned so much about it in the writer’s room, as a citizen of the world and as a parent,” said Flanagan. “It’s one of the things I think is kind of the most important assets of the show that we were able to make.”

“Chris Hargensen or Margaret White, the second you open that book or turn on any of the previous adaptations, they are monsters. Our show doesn’t have any monsters. None! They are people who have their own pain and their own patterns. They are victims in their way as well. It’s about choices that they make,” continued Flanagan. “There are heroes and villains in the world; it’s just so rare that they are so clear-cut or obvious, and they don’t come fully formed as what they are. It takes us a while to recognize them for what they are because we are all so godd*mn complicated.”

“That was something we had an opportunity to explore in the show that the novel, which is one of King’s thinnest novels on the shelf, and the feature film, which doesn’t have a canvas that size,” explained Flanagan. “They don’t get to go into that the way we do.”

Carrie, Series Premiere, Wednesday, October 7, Prime Video