Thanks to the success of Scream in 1996, horror movies were suddenly cool again during the second half of the '90s. Studios couldn't crank out their latest teen-oriented scary movies fast enough. And unlike today, where they probably would have just made a few remakes, Hollywood toyed with the idea of sequels. And not just new entries in long-running franchises, either. I mean digging old movies out of the mothballs and giving them sequels.
There were only two of them that I'm aware of, though. One was An American Werewolf in Paris, a sequel that came sixteen years after John Landis's lycanthropic adventures in London. Another was a sequel I'm sure nobody saw coming, The Rage: Carrie 2. How do you make a sequel to a movie where practically every character — including the one the movie was named after — died at the end? But somebody actually did it, and I guess I'll have to review it.
Twenty years have passed since Carrie White wreaked havoc upon her high school prom. The story's become something of a local urban legend, but is still fresh in the mind of Sue Snell (Amy Irving), the sole survivor of that fateful night. She's become a guidance counselor in those twenty years, devoting herself to helping troubled kids to atone for her inability to help Carrie.
She is quickly drawn to Rachel Lang (Emily Bergl), a teenage misfit with a very tiny circle of friends. That circle sadly gets a little tinier, though, when Rachel's best friend Lisa (Mena Suvari) commits suicide after learning that the boy she'd given her virginity to, popular football player Eric Stark (Zachary Ty Bryan), only slept with her as part of a cruel game where he and his teammates rack up points for their sexual conquests.
When Rachel rats Eric out, he and his teammates begins planning their revenge. The only one who abstains from this plot is Jesse Ryan (Jason London), a handsome jock who has taken a liking to Rachel. She reciprocates his feelings, but the hassling she gets from Jesse's teammates starts amplifying the telekinetic abilities that Rachel began to display after Lisa's suicide.
Sue witnesses an instance of Rachel's ability in action and immediately compares her to Carrie. But Sue's attempts to take Rachel under her wing are rebuffed as she and Jesse's relationship heats up. And things begin looking up when the football players seem to change their minds about her and welcome her into their group. They even invite her to a party, but only to humiliate her and make her believe that Jesse was using her as part of their game. An infuriated Rachel lets loose with her telekinesis, turning the party into a massacre.
There's been a ton of unnecessary, unwarranted sequels over the years, but few are as egregious as The Rage: Carrie 2. Brian De Palma's Carrie had no real loose ends to tie up, nothing to follow up on. There's no reason for this sequel to even exist beyond a simple cash grab. But believe it or not, it's not a bad movie. It is, however, unbearably mediocre. If I had to guess, I'd imagine the problem with it is that it had to be a Carrie sequel. The original movie is an absolute classic, a movie so good that there is absolutely no way anyone could do a worthy follow-up.
But I'll give credit where credit is due and say that it's apparent director Katt Shea wants to make a respectable go of it. Unfortunately, her work isn't quite as impressive as I imagine she thought it'd be. There are a few instances of some very well-done cinematography, but the majority of the movie feels like the same generic style that a lot of the horror movies from the period shared. And then there's those times where Shea decides she wants to be a little artsy by throwing in some grainy, black and white, stereotypical "independent movie from the '90s" shots into the moments where Rachel briefly loses control of her telekinesis. It doesn't really add anything to the movie, and can actually take you out of the movie a little bit. Shea is at least trying something a little different, though, so I can't really fault her for that.
Where the movie starts falling apart is the screenplay by Rafael Moreu. For the most part, the script is just a really bad remake of Carrie with practically nothing that would qualify it as a sequel. Yeah, Moreu threw the character of Sue Snell in there. But Sue is pretty much a non-factor for the entire movie. Her subplot is utterly pointless and accomplishes absolutely nothing. All it does is add a laughable and unneeded plot revelation — that Carrie and Rachel are half-sisters — while completely wasting our time. And the fact that Sue is casually disposed of the second she arrives at the site of Rachel's fiery rampage further cements just how useless the whole thing was.
But the worst flaw with the screenplay is how it's just a poor retread of Carrie. In the first movie, you genuinely believed that Carrie's life was awful and that her vengeful wrath against her classmates was a long time coming. But the cruelty that Carrie suffered at the hands of her mother and peers is nowhere to be found here. Outside of her friend's suicide and her foster father smacking her once in a while, all that really happens to Rachel is a mean-spirited prank that I doubt would spark a homicidal rage in most people. Rachel suffered nowhere near the level of appalling abuse from her family and peers that Carrie did, which only makes her roaring rampage of revenge seem less inspired.
I also had a hard time buying Rachel as the mousy, abused outcast that Carrie was. While it's probably the fault of the casting department, since they didn't really paint the super-cute Emily Bergl as having the potential for an "ugly duckling to beautiful swan" transformation that Sissy Spacek had. You could just argue that Rachel just runs in different social circles than the cool kids. Rachel simply didn't strike me as the beset-upon wallflower that Carrie was. Sorry, Carrie 2, I just wasn't feeling it.
But at least the cast wasn't too bad. I especially liked Emily Bergl, who I thought was very likable in the lead role. Bergl is believable and convincing, even if I did previously question the reasoning behind Rachel's eventual snapping. I also liked the chemistry she had with Jason London, who I felt contributed a sweet, genuine performance.
Amy Irving, on the other hand, didn't contribute anything at all. Just like her subplot, Irving brought nothing to the table and the movie wouldn't be any greater or poorer had her scenes been deleted. And bringing up the rear are Dylan Bruno and Zachary Ty Bryan, who play two of the most unlikable douchebags ever captured on film. Considering how loathsome they are and are supposed to be, I guess I could say that Bruno and Bryan did the best jobs they could.
The Rage: Carrie 2 is a sequel that probably shouldn't have been made. It would have made a serviceable standalone movie, but it isn't. All we've got is a lame sequel that just wanted to piggyback on a classic. It's a failure as a sequel, and it's mediocre on its own. And you know what? If the makers of this movie had waited a decade, the movie would have probably been one of those forgotten direct-to-DVD sequels that come out all the time nowadays.
Final Rating: **
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