La ira: Carrie 2

The words "Stephen King" and "Sequel" usually make the skin crawl, but The Rage: Carrie 2 isn't all bad.

Question: does everyone in movies have to be so pretty? In this film we are asked to believe that Emily Bergl and Mena Suvari are ugly, just as Rachel Leigh Cook was supposedly plain Jane in "She's All That". Please! I thought Bergl was beautiful, but I have a soft spot for girls with a dark side. On the other hand, the leader of the jocks who ostensibly got all the chicks looked like Ethan Hawke's redneck cousin. These guys are such misogynistic pricks that you can't wait for them to die. The scariest thing about this movie is the knowledge that jocks like that exist, thinkng they are entitled to everything thy want because they can throw a ball.

What 'will I ever learn'? Never judge a book by its cover, a film by its trailer, a story by the 'critics'. Well, some of them anyway.

The trailer to this movie did NOT appeal to me. Some of the critics trashed it. Even the box to the actual tape/DVD looked 'cookie-cutter' to the first Carrie. I hate redone classics, therefore, I avoided this movie like the plague for the longest time. Indeed, I ran the opposite direction when this movie came near me. Well, maybe thats going a bit far.

LOW AND BEHOLD!! Last night (7/5/2002) USA network showed this movie, and nothing else was on. I had a bottle of Jose Quervo on hand; just in case. I sat down and got ready to laugh at, tear apart and rag on this flick. After all, its my job as a film buff to see even the 'bad' films in order to better appreciate the 'good'.

I was utterly surprised by this film. There was a character played by Mena Suvari... a pleasant surprise to me- that I thought surely would be the 'new and improved Carrie'. Oops, now I've gone too far. ANYWAY! I actually enjoyed this film. I felt very bad for the character's treatment by others, as well as, herself.

That's all I'll say on the content of the movie since there may be those out there who've avoided this film like I did. DON'T!! This movie put me in my place on pre-judging films. I felt entertained and the piece was well-done. I can't think of anything wrong with this movie; right now. Perhaps, it was a bit on the teen-film stereotypical side, but I just really enjoyed watching this film. Thank you for your time o<;O) Skot

The Rage: Carrie 2 - being more a remake than a sequel of the 70ies classic - is a good film for chilling out after a week of work or something like that. The creators were able to transport the basic ideas of the Stephen King novel (teenage problems)into this sequel. Only this is a reason to call this a good movie - because I think that Stephen King fans had to see much bad adaptions of the master´s work in the past. Another reason is that this movie is much better than all the other teen-horror-movies of the last years like I Know What You Did Last Summer (of course I could never say something bad about the first two Scream movies - seriously!). Carrie 2 handles teenager´s problems and conflict much better than other films and I think that it is a much better film to identificate with for young people. The "new Carrie" is - once again - a true outsider and not one of these upper class all-american teens like the ones in I Know...etc. The movie shows its sympathy for this outsider (a nice detail: in some scenes you can see the Marilyn Manson-poster at the wall of Rachel´s room - the icon of all angry outsiders). Another point: the horror violence is much harder than in the other teen movies, too. Everyone who likes gory horror should like this movie All in all, I could not say anything bad about this movie. Just take a look. 8 out of 10

Yes, you read that right.

Emily Bergl is this films greatest asset. She can actually act and looks sincere. The only problem is that she's far too good looking for the role. That may sound shallow, but throughout the movie, we're supposed to get the impression that she's "ugly" and because of that, she's an outcast. Contrast this to Sissy Spacek in the original who looked plain enough to carry out the role of "ugly duckling". It was only her talent that let Bergl carry (pun not intended) out the role convincingly.

The antoganists are unusually shallow, especially when presented against the more modern bad guys in horror films, at least where you can see the bad guy. Though at least one of the bad girls is convincing as Rachel's new friend.

Jason Landon does an amiable job as Rachel's boyfriend and lends a lot of credibility to the final scene which, I must say, is a refreshing change from the hand coming out of the ground scenes popularized by the original Carrie.

All in all, a refreshingly entertaining and, dare I say, well done show.

Let's see, thought an idea-starved movie exec one day, what can we do a sequel to now? Thoughts of the abandoned 'Freddie vs Jason' project pushed to the back of his mind, and realising that 'Titanic 2 - The Next Disaster' just wasn't working out, he thought back a bit further.

'Carrie'! Classic horror movie. How do we pull in the punters? Let's think. What was good about the first movie? Mmm, okay, blood, anger, school angst; yep, we can use those. Junk the religious symbolism (just not COOL these days), stick in a new, 21st-century sexually-aware Carrie figure (defeats the point of the movie, but not to worry), hire a hack script writer, and what do we have? Ah, a remake of the first movie in every detail - except for the good bits! That'll sell, then.