My Review of The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999)

 

Written by Rafael Moreu

Directed by Katt Shea

Sue: "You've heard of Carrie White, haven't you?"

Rachel: "Supposedly, she set the fire as some sort of revenge-suicide thing, Elvis was her date and they escaped in a UFO."

I've gone many years not watching this. Not out of avoidance, I just couldn't be bothered but with an upcoming Amazon Prime show in two months time, I thought it was time to finally give it go.

Despite having Carrie in the title, it's not her story and save for some clips of the first movie, she doesn't feature at all. In fact, the focus was on her half sister, Rachel Lang (Emily Bergl/Kayla Campbell). Yup, turns out that Daddy White really playing around behind Margaret's back.

The film opened with the younger Rachel being tormented by her mentally ill mother, Barbara (J. Smith Cameron). The latter's sectioned and Rachel along with her dog, Walter went to live with Boyd (John Doe) and Emilyn (Kate Skinner). They're not better as foster parents and Boyd in particular had no problem striking Rachel.

Of course school wasn't any better but Rachel had a friend in Lisa (Mena Suvari). Sadly Lisa died early in the movie. Actually, Lisa killed her and it was a result of a bunch of jocks seducing girls and scoring them. In particular, it was Mark (Dylan Bruno) was ran and this and it was Eric (Zachary Ty Bryan) who drove Lisa to taking her life.

This storyline largely triggered Rachel's latent powers and the presence of Sue Snell (Amy Irving) did it's best to tie this one into the first movie. She was the one to reveal to Rachel about Carrie being her half sister and she broke Barbara out. Neither of those things ended up being helpful in stopping the inevitable with Rachel.

Of course Rachel's relationship with the much nicer Jesse (Jason London) and budding friendship with Monica (Rachel Blanchard) went horribly wrong. The jocks publicly humiliated Rachel, Rachel went on a fair impressive killing spree, Jesse managed to talk yet around and she ended up being a casualty of her own powers. 

- Jesse ended keeping Walter and had a nightmare about Rachel visiting him.

- Sue becoming a guidance counsellor was a nice turn of events of the character. I like that Amy Irving reprised the role.

- Standout music: 5 X Down's Looking Down The Barrel.

- Chronology: Started in 1989 but the majority of the film was set in 1999.

The Rage: Carrie 2 isn't bad as a sequel and there's decent connective tissue to the first movie. Emily Bergl did her best with trying to differentiate Rachel from her more infamous sister. Some moderately good kills also help.

Rating: 6 out of 10