The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999)

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Better than I thought it might have been, but still could have been more interesting.Without spoiling,Most action comes in the last 20 minute of the film. And it's a very good scene worthy of any horror movie.I do agree with another poster who said that Emily Bergl's character was too pretty to play the outcast ugly-duckling. Honestly, she was better looking and more charismatic than ANY other of the young ladies in the film. I was mesmerized by her.I wish there was a little more action in the second act of the film rather than relying on faux horror character development. I didn't really care to know much about the other characters, other than Emily Bergl's character and her boyfriend---honestly, they were the only true interesting characters in the film.

One could easily be forgiven for having serious misgivings about this belated sequel to Brian De Palma's iconic horror classic: director Katt Shea's movies are primarily B-movie fodder, and the cast—Emily 'who?' Bergl, Mena 'It's all been downhill since '99' Suvari, S**tbreak from American Pie, and Rachel 'Cher from the TV series of Clueless' Blanchard—hardly inspire confidence. But while its admittedly a long way from the excellence of the '76 original, neither is it the totally unwatchable crap-fest that one might imagine.Bergl plays high-school student Rachel Lang, who lives with foster parents, her real mother having been committed to an asylum when she was young. After her best friend Lisa (Suvari) commits suicide, Rachel sees school counsellor Sue Snell (Amy Irving) who becomes convinced that the girl possesses psychic powers similar to those of Carrie White, a shy, reclusive girl whose powerful telekinetic abilities resulted in death and destruction twenty three years earlier. When Rachel begins to date football player Jesse (Jason London) and is invited to a party by the popular kids, things appear to be looking up, but tragedy lies just around the corner.For much of its running time, The Rage is more like a high-school drama than a horror film, focussing on the trials and tribulations of teenage life; it's clichéd stuff but passes the time painlessly enough. Finally, after an hour and a half of teenage shenanigans, some weak attempts at style from Shea (unnecessary black and white scenes and distorted imagery) and a little lazy exposition to explain away Rachel's powers, the film finally delivers the horror goods with a cracking climax that sees Rachel unleashing the full force of her telekinesis on her tormentors with spectacularly gory results (including a guy getting his junk blown off by a spear-gun!).

The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999): Dir: Katt Shea / Cast: Emily Bergl, Jason London, Amy Irving, Zachary Ty Bryan, Dylan Bruno: Worthwhile sequel to Carrie dealing with inner madness opening with telekinetic Rachel witnessing her mother get institutionalized at a young age. Now in high school her best friend commits suicide. She was a pawn where a group of football buddies score each other on sexual acts. One of them had his picture taken with the victim and is under police investigation. Rachel meets Jason London after his dog is in an accident. He feels guilt after having participated in the football lunacy. Amy Irving returns as Sue Snell who learns of Rachel's powers and discovers her birthright. Stylish directing by Katt Shea who can be credited with the interesting prank subplot but its conclusion is disappointing. Emily Bergl does well as Rachel until all hell breaks loose in its duplicate conclusion. Jason London also holds strong as one of the jocks with a little more compassion. Irving unfortunately is wasted and her dismiss is pointless and pitiful. Zachary Ty Bryan plays one of the guilty football jocks in what is a more aggressive streak as compared to his stint on Home Improvement, but we know his destiny here. Other roles are more or less the subject to Carrie's rage where bad things happen. The result is a worthy sequel but hardly an improvement. Score: 6 ½ / 10

It's bad enough that Carrie had its awful remakes in 2002 and 2013, but if you look at all four Carrie movies, you'll discover one of the worst movies ever. Just like the Firestarter sequel (Rekindled), this one travels way too far from the original plot, the characters are preppy high school students and the soundtrack is horrible, as is the acting.The Rage follows telekinetic outcast and killer Carrie White's half-sister, Racheal, as she discovers her own horrible powers. As a child her mom was committed to a mental hospital so now Racheal lives with her trailer-trash foster parents and her only friend has committed suicide, leaving her alone. Racheal's beloved basset hound, Walter, is squashed by a car, and afterwards Racheal begins to learn that the urban legend of Carrie White, who wrecked the town in the Seventies, was indeed a true story, and soon everyone at school is coming face-to-face with Racheal's telekinetic rage.There are so many cliché horror elements in this movie that it's not even funny. I cared nothing about what happened to any of the characters, the guys were all sleazy sex maniacs and the girls were all snotty Barbie clones or emo teens, nothing unique about anyone. For some reason Racheal has a heart-shaped tattoo, no idea why, and when she uses her powers, vines grow out of it. Why? Like I said, no idea whatsoever, just a pointless waste of the movie's budget.The only bright side to this pathetic load of garbage is that Amy Irving, who played the original Sue Snell in the 1976 Carrie, comes back to play the role of Sue Snell again as an adult. This movie reminded me more of The Haunting of Molly Hartley than it did of Carrie.My advice? Don't watch The Rage unless you're incredibly bored.