Sam Panico
Originally titled The Curse, this film, based on the real-life Spur Posse case, sat in development hell for two years. One can only wish that it had remained there. How did we as a people allow this movie to happen? If only social media had been around to shame this film into nothingness back then!
The original story was so close to Carrie that the producers decided to go for it and the film finally went into production in 1998 under the title Carrie 2: Say You're Sorry. However, just a few weeks into production, director Robert Mandel (School Ties, F/X) quit over creative difference and Katt Shea (Stripped to Kill, Poison Ivy) stepped in with less than a week to prepare and two weeks' worth of unusable footage.Did you like Hackers? Well, if you did, good news. The writer of that movie, Rafael Moreu, also wrote this. Chances are, however, that you disliked that movie. Most people do.Man, where to start? Well, how about in the past, where Barbara Lang paints a red paint barrier throughout her house to protect her daughter Rachel from Satan? There's a nice transition here where we go from the young girl holding her puppy to the teen version holding an older version of Walter the dog.Rachel hates her foster parents (the dad is John Doe from X!) and only has one friend, Lisa (a pre-American Pie and American Beauty, if only by a few months, Mena Suvari). On the bus, Lisa shares that she just gave up her virginity to Eric (Zachery Ty Bryan of TV's Home Improvement), a football player.The truth? It's all an elaborate game where players get points for sleeping with different girls. Eric rejects her and Lisa dives off the roof of the school, igniting Rachel's telekinetic powers.That's when we meet Sue Snell (Amy Irving, who asked Brian De Palma for his blessing), the only person who came back from the original. She's now a school counselor and she and Sheriff Kelton are trying to figure out why so many girls have come to her in tears. Never mind that one of them just did a perfect dive off the garden club's roof.Meanwhile, Walter the dog gets hit by a car and Jesse, the nice football player takes her to the animal hospital. Becca assures me that Jason London and his twin brother, Jesse, were once a big deal. All I know is that he was in Dazed and Confused. The football players learn that Rachel figured out the game and alerted the police, so they try and intimidate her. Her powers nearly kill them before her foster parents arrive.Sue Snell drops the bomb on Rachel soon after. Her father, Ralph White, also was the father of Carrie White, who burned down the school that Sue attended and killed 70 people thanks to her powers. Rachel refuses to believe that they are half-sisters, even after a visit to the burned down school. This is probably where the planned Sissy Spacek cameo would have gone, but she did not want to be in the film. She did allow her old footage to be used, however. There was even a version shot of this scene where Rachel kicked the metal bucket that dropped onto Carrie's head, but thankfully smarter heads won out.So Jesse falls in love with Rachel, despite popular girl Tracy being all butthurt about it. Oh yeah - I forgot that American Pie alumnus Eddie Kaye Thomas shows up, too.The players get out of jail free thanks to the status of their parents. But they want revenge, so they decide to humiliate Rachel. They secretly tape Rachel and Jesse making love and play it at a big party that they've invited Rachel to. The players also reveal their sex game and make her believe that Jesse never really loved her.As they all scream and yell at her (one of them even yells, "They're all going to laugh at you," which one imagines they would only know from an Adam Sandler routine), she finally unleashes her power and kills nearly everyone. This is the one great scene in the film, as her tattoo (which looks like the fakest tattoo in the history of the fake tattoo game) becomes vines that descend down her arm.Sue has somehow stolen Barbara from the mental institution to try and save Rachel, but it causes her death (shades of Miss Collins in the original). Even spear guns and a flare gun can't stop her. Finally, her mother tells her that she is possessed by Satan and wants nothing to do with her and Rachel begs to die.Tracy comes into the house and Rachel kills her with absolutely no mercy. As the videotape of Jesse and Rachel plays, she makes him explain. He screams that he loves her but she doesn't believe it until she hears the same tone on the video. The ceiling collapses on her and he stays by her side to kiss, but she pushes him away as she dies.A year later, while in his college dorm with her dog (he must have one of those great football player deals that allow you to have a pet on campus and yes, I get the silliness of me being bothered by this when I've just watched an entire movie about psychic powers), Rachel appears to him in a dream before she shatters. And yes, that's the dumbest ending I've seen in some time.This movie is a complete piece of 1990's junk and not in a good way. It's all shot with that crushed black/blue filter, everything on the soundtrack sounds like Fear Factory and it makes you realize a time and place where horrible sequels like this and An American Werewolf in Paris were considered good ideas. This would have been better if it were a movie that stood in its own so that I could have ended this article with something like, well, it's no Carrie. Instead, it shoves that fact into your face from the very first frame.
BA_Harrison
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!).
callanvass
Rachel Lang is a teenager with many emotional troubles. Her Mom is a little crazy and she's ridden with telekinesis, meaning she has the uncanny ability to move things with her mind. Sue Snell (Amy Irving) witnessed the downfall of Carrie White many years ago, and wants to make sure that Rachel doesn't go through the same thing. To make matters worse, her best friend Lisa (Mena Suvari) commits suicide over a womanizer, leaving her with nothing. Things start to look up when she meets a hunk at the school (Jason London) and Rachel uncovers what happened to cause her best friend to commit suicide, but wannabe jock, Eric (Zachary Ty Bryan) will stop at nothing to make sure Rachel doesn't uncover the truth. I'm NOT a fan of the first movie or the remake. The first movie has a huge following, something I've never quite understood. It's an above average movie at best. Needless to say, my expectations for this unnecessary sequel were quite low. The original is mentioned here and there, but so much more could have been done with it. The relationships feel very cookie-cutter and forced. It's hard to commit emotionally when I felt so empty for most of the duration. The character development isn't that great, and everything felt thrown in there. The telekinesis storyline is played out as well. Emily Bergl is great as Rachel, managing to overcome a poor script. I don't get why she was such an outsider, though. She's really pretty! I had a hard time believing that she had trouble gaining friends or dates. She makes the most of it, and comes through like a champ. Jason London is solid as the love interest. Chicks will fall in love with him, and he's really likable. His chemistry with Bergl is decent, albeit unspectacular. Amy Irving cashes in a check, I'll say that. Her part wasn't much, and had the potential to be much more. Zachery Ty Bryan is a lame jock. He's rather boring, in my opinion. For those that don't know, he's mostly known for Home Improvement. Rachel Blanchard is sexy and manipulative, giving her thin part some flavor. I've been a fan of hers since Clueless. American Pie fans will rejoice at the sightings of Mena Suvari and Eddie Kaye Thomas! I know I did. Too bad their parts aren't much. A lot of the characters are unsympathetic, making it hard to care about their fates. I wouldn't call this a gore fest, but the ending is absolutely LOADED with blood! If you've seen the ending to Hellraiser 3, you'll see something very similar here. It gets really nasty! Fun with CD's, glass, spears, and much more! They try to recreate the emotional impact from the ending of the first one to no avail.The last 20 minutes are fun! Shame about the rest of it. It's watchable, but completely uninspired in every way. If you insist on seeing it, prepare for a lot of routine drivel until the last 20 minutes! The best thing about this movie is Emily Bergl's performance. 5.1/10
