The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999)
Review by Justin
Felix
Screenplay by Rafael Moreu.
Inspired by the novel Carrie by Stephen King.
Directed by Robert Mandel and Katt Shea.
Starring Emily Bergl, Jason London, and Amy Irving.
Rated R (contains violence, profanity, sexuality, and nudity) 104 mins.
Synopsis: Rachel Lang, half-sister of Carrie White, dresses up as a
goth
chick and gets real mad when her best friend commits suicide and other
teenagers conspire against her. She uses her telekinetic powers to slam
doors shut, open school lockers, shatter a glass globe, and kill all her
school peers at a party. Meanwhile, Sue Snell, survivor of the original
Carrie, breaks Rachel's mother out of an insane asylum, and the two
drive
around in Sue's car.
Comments: UGGGGHHHHHH! Though this isn't THE worst horror film
I've seen
in recent years, it certainly is the worst horror film I've seen IN A
THEATER in recent years. Even that's saying a lot, considering that I've
sat through Bride of Chucky, Urban Legends and I Still
Know What You Did Last Summer and dozens of other crappy teen horror
flicks in the past year (my
brother often kindly sits through these with me). At least with the
aforementioned films, the audience could make fun of the cinematic slop
projected on the screen. the Rage: Carrie 2, however, isn't even
bad-in-a-funny-way; it's just bad. I wished the theater had its lights on
so that I could count ceiling tiles. At one point, I was even tempted to
cut my losses and suggest to my companions that we leave, something which
only occurred one other time in my entire life. (I desperately wanted to
leave the theater during Last Man Standing--a Bruce Willis vehicle
that is
arguably one of the worst films ever made--but, as with Carrie 2, I
somehow
managed to stay until the closing credits).
Anyone even vaguely aware of the original Carrie knows exactly where
this
sequel is headed from the very start; therefore, almost everyone will be
bored as this turkey unwinds. Carrie was a really good horror
movie; Carrie 2 is a really bad rip-off. For some inexplicable
reason, the filmmakers
decided to include scenes from the original Carrie in its sequel.
This was
a really bad idea because it reminded the audience of two things: (1) how
good Carrie was and (2) how awful Carrie 2 is in
comparison.
While the cast is uniformly bad, I do have to admit that Emily Bergl does a
relatively creepy job portraying Rachel, "the new Carrie." The other actors
pretend to be teenagers or concerned parents poorly. Amy Irving, sole teen
survivor of the original Carrie, returns here. At first, one thinks
that
this is a good idea. It isn't. Irving's character, Sue Snell, is
absolutely contrived and ridiculous in the sequel. At the end of
Carrie,
Sue Snell is recieving psychiatric treatment and screaming at the top of her
lungs. Twenty years later, she's a counsellor for the local high school?
Come on. Snell also seems to know a lot about telekinesis. Apparently, as
Snell explains, some guy with a genetic trait for telekinesis is knocking up
schizophrenic women so they'll give birth to emotionally unstable
telekinetic teenage girls. Want to know this evil guy's name? It's Ralph.
Ralph! What kind of name for an evil character is that? Why did I sit
through this movie?
As a final indicator of how bad this film is, Carrie 2's portrayal of
teenaged jock life is so ludicrous, pompous, and surreal, it made me yearn
for the recent teenaged jock movie Varisity Blues. Carrie 2
actually makes
the MTV-crap Varsity Blues seem like Casablanca. I could
complain more
about Carrie 2, but I feel I've already wasted more of my time to it
than it
deserves. If you really must see this crap, wait until Joe Bob Briggs hosts
it on TNT. At least then, it'll be free.
Rating:
(Out of five)
All of Justin's film reviews are archived at
The Internet Movie Database
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