The Rage: Carrie 2

The film starts with a crazy woman, played by J. Smith-Cameron, painting her house red. She then slaps her daughter, played by Kayla Campbell, in the face with the oily brush. This causes the police to take away the crazy mother and the young girl, Rachel, taken to a foster home. When she grows up, Rachel (Emily Bergl) loathes her abusive adoptive parents (Kate Skinner and John Doe), dresses in dark gothic clothes, and is comforted only by her Basset Hound, Walter. At school, her best friend is Lisa, played by Mena Suvari, a similarly distant person who reveals on the bus that she lost her virginity to a guy that Rachel would be shocked about.

The next morning, Lisa jumps off the roof of the school onto a car windshield. Her suicide scares apparent boyfriend Eric Stark, played by Brad Taylor from “Home Improvement,” Zachary Ty Bryan, a popular member of the high school football team, the Bulldogs. He asks the leader Mark Bing, played by Dylan Bruno, to get some photographs from the local PhotoMat, where Rachel works, that show Eric and Lisa together. Lisa had the feeling that she meant something to Eric, but she was just one of a long list of girls that the football team used to form a game of scoring points based on the girls they slept with. Mike Massie said in his review, “As more elements of stress are introduced into Rachel’s life, her sanity begins to unravel. These components include popularity issues, unease around the jock she likes, Jesse Ryan (Jason London), and news that her real father was also the father of Carrie White, a girl who was blamed for burning down the old high school (using the same genetic recessive trait of telekinesis that Rachel also possesses – and of course, the scenario for 1976’s “Carrie”).”

Maybe the only funny part of “The Rage: Carrie 2,” released in 1999, that has any relevancy or connection with the original Stephen King cult classic of the 70s is the return of Amy Irving as Sue Snell, the only significant survivor from the previous film. Massie noted, “Laughably, she mentions her own mental trauma that resulted in prescribed time at Arkham Asylum, which, regardless of spelling, sounds entirely too similar to Batman’s renowned psychopath sanctuary.” Now, she’s a school counselor who identifies Rachel’s abilities and wants to take her to a lab at Princeton for treatment.

Massie noted, “This loose sequel, arriving a staggering 23 years after the success of Brian de Palma’s thriller, essentially dispenses with the horror and entertainment value of its predecessor, repeating a similar plotline with a new lead girl. Her torment is slightly more modernized, though the creativity is diminished to spoofing “Scream,” while flashbacks (from both inside and outside the movie) foreshadow the other sporadic recreations of the past.” Black and white shots are strangely inserted in the film, some from Rachel’s point of view and others apparently from an outside perspective. Massie ended his review by saying, “It’s as if the movie can’t play by its own rules of cinematographic stylization. Slow motion is misused, funky jazz music springs up at the most ridiculous moments, and the climax is infused with comically over-the-top, graphic violence. The goofiness is perpetuated by bad acting, silly facial expressions, and too many “American Pie” cast members, making this a most unnecessary recycling of a seminal horror masterwork.”

Why was there even a need to make a sequel to “Carrie?” Did anything in the film leave any indication that there will be a sequel? Did we need to know what happened to Sue after being traumatized at her senior prom? Nothing in this movie makes any sense. It makes you scratch your head asking what the people were on when making this. This is one of those unnecessary sequels that you should never see. I heard about this when Nostalgia Critic did his list of the best Stephen King movies. I cannot believe that I checked this out this month. Avoid seeing this on Max as you will hate every minute of it.

Sad to say, they made a remake of “Carrie,” which I will look at on Monday in the continuation of “Halloween Month 2023.”