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The Rage: Carrie 2

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The Rage: Carrie 2
Theatrical release poster
Directed byKatt Shea
Written byRafael Moreu
Based onCarrie
by Stephen King
Produced byPaul Monash
Starring
CinematographyDonald M. Morgan
Edited byRichard Nord
Music byDanny B. Harvey
Production
companies
United Artists
Red Bank Films
Distributed by
Release date
  • March 12, 1999 (1999-03-12)
Running time
105 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$21 million[1]
Box office$17.8 million[1]

The Rage: Carrie 2 is a 1999 American supernatural horror film directed by Katt Shea, and starring Emily Bergl, Jason London, Dylan Bruno, J. Smith-Cameron and Amy Irving. The film is a sequel to the 1976 horror film Carrie based on the 1974 novel of the same name by Stephen King, and serves as the second film in the Carrie franchise. The film was originally titled The Curse and did not have connections to the Carrie novel or film, but was eventually rewritten to be a direct sequel to the 1976 film. Its plot follows the younger half-sister of Carrie White (Bergl), also suffering with telekinesis, who finds that her best friend's suicide was spurred by a group of popular male classmates who exploited her for sexual gain.

The Rage: Carrie 2 was released on March 12, 1999, and was a box office bomb, grossing $17 million against a $21 million production budget.[2] It received generally negative reviews, which criticized the routine recycling of the original film's story and themes. However, they widely praised the performance of Bergl, who was nominated for a Saturn Award for her work on the film.[3]

Plot

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In 1989, Barbara Lang claims her daughter Rachel is possessed, having seen her display of telekinesis. Barbara is diagnosed with schizophrenia and institutionalized, while six-year-old Rachel is placed in foster care.

In 1999, Rachel, an outcast high-schooler, is living with unsympathetic foster parents. Her best friend Lisa Parker commits suicide by leaping from the school's roof after popular football star Eric Stark dumped her, having exploited her for sex.

While developing Lisa's film, Rachel finds a photograph of her and Eric kissing. She turns the photo in to the police, explaining Lisa confessed to her that she had recently lost her virginity. Sheriff Kelton and the school's guidance counselor, Sue Snell, pursue statutory rape charges against Eric, who is 18 while Lisa is 15.

Eric and many of his teammates, including Mark Bing and Chuck Potter, are competing to see who can seduce the most girls. Rachel's Basset Hound, Walter, is hit by a car and she flags down a driver, who is Jesse Ryan, another player on the team. Jesse takes an interest in Rachel, to the chagrin of cheerleader Tracy Campbell, who is pursuing him. Meanwhile, having discovered that Rachel implicated them in Lisa's death, Eric and Mark attempt to scare her into silence by harassing her at her home, but her telekinetic powers frighten them away. Pressured by the players' families, the district attorney covers up the statutory rape charges against Eric.

Sue begins to suspect Rachel may possess telekinetic powers through their counseling sessions. She tracks down Barbara, whose schizophrenia has stabilized, and learns that Rachel's father was Ralph White, the father of Carrie White. Sue brings Rachel to the ruins of the high school which Carrie destroyed in a telekinetic rage in 1976 after being humiliated at her senior prom. Sue, a peer of Carrie's, is the only survivor of the incident. When Sue discloses that Carrie is Rachel's half-sister, Rachel dismisses her as a liar. Sue later sneaks Barbara out of the institution so that she can inform Rachel of her father's identity.

As revenge, Mark sets up and covertly films a romantic date between Rachel and Jesse. He throws a big party at his family's mansion. Monica Jones, a girl in the clique, befriends Rachel and invites her to their party. Rachel leaves with Monica to the party, while Tracy takes Jesse, having arranged for his car to be sabotaged. Tracy attempts to seduce Jesse but he rejects her.

At the party, Mark and Chuck cruelly humiliate Rachel by projecting the footage of her and Jesse having sex for all the partygoers to see, and saying she is just a name in Jesse's "list of conquests." This triggers Rachel's telekinesis, and she seals the mansion closed. She causes a large window to explode, killing and maiming most of the partygoers, and triggers a fire. Sue and Barbara arrive at the party, but a fire-poker impales the front door, killing Sue.

Monica, Eric, and Mark frantically arm themselves as Rachel pursues them. Rachel makes Monica's glasses implode into her eyes, killing her and causing her to inadvertently castrate Eric with a harpoon. Mark shoots Rachel with a flare gun and she falls into the swimming pool. When Mark approaches the pool, Rachel pulls him in, triggers the sensor to the automatic pool cover, and leaves him to drown.

Barbara accuses Rachel of being possessed and flees. Jesse and Tracy arrive at the party. Rachel kills Tracy by causing a piece of ceiling to collapse on her. On a balcony, Rachel confronts Jesse about his list, but he denies it. Rachel then notices that the videotape of her and Jesse, still playing in the living room, captured Jesse saying "I love you" while she slept. As Rachel realizes Jesse's genuine feelings for her, an awning collapses on her. She throws Jesse off the balcony onto the pool as she burns to death.

In 2000, Jesse, now a student at King's University, cares for Walter. He has a nightmare of kissing Rachel before she shatters into pieces.

Cast

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Production

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Development

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Originally titled The Curse, the film was not developed as a sequel to the 1976 film adaptation and began as an original story.[4][5] Production was initially scheduled to start in 1996 with Emily Bergl in the lead role; however, production stalled for two years, and the plot was retooled as a Carrie sequel.[6] The plot involving the high school jocks who use a point system to rate their sexual conquests is inspired from a real-life 1993 sex scandal involving a group known as the Spur Posse.[7][5] The film went into production in 1998 under the title Carrie 2: Say You're Sorry.

A few weeks into production, director Robert Mandel quit over creative differences and Katt Shea took over the reins with less than a week to prepare to start filming, and two weeks' worth of footage to reshoot.[8] Shea was initially hesitant to take over, but was told everyone would be fired and the film would be shelved if she did not.[9] Portions of the film were filmed in a North Carolina house designed by the iconic architect Gene Leedy.[10]

Casting

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Amy Irving reprised the role of Sue Snell, which she originated in the first Carrie, though she was initially wary of taking the role and asked Brian De Palma, director of the original film, for his blessing.[11] In a 2024 interview, Irving said De Palma and herself liked the original director [presumably Robert Mandel], factoring into her agreement to perform in it. She said "I'm sorry I ever made that film. ... Except they paid me a shitload of money."[12] Director Shea was told that she would not be able to use footage of Sissy Spacek from the original Carrie, but she edited several scenes into the film and presented the film to Spacek, who granted permission for her likeness to be used.[10]

Release

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Box office

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The Rage: Carrie 2 was released by United Artists on March 12, 1999. It opened in second place that weekend but was not successful.[13] It grossed a total of $17,762,705 domestically against a $21 million budget, making the film a box office disappointment.[1]

Home media

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The film was released on VHS and DVD on October 12, 1999, and Laserdisc on November 9.[14] A Blu-ray version of the film was released on April 14, 2015, in a double feature with the 2002 TV version of Carrie from Scream Factory.[15] This edition went out of print in October 2019.[16]

Reception

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Critical response

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The film received mostly negative reviews upon its release. Rotten Tomatoes reported the film had a 23% approval rating based on 39 reviews with the consensus: "As disposable as its predecessor is indispensable, The Rage: Carrie 2 mimics the arc of Stephen King's classic story without adding anything of value."[17] On Metacritic, it had a rating of 42 on a scale from 0–100 based on 21 reviews, indicating mixed or average reviews.[18]

Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars, deriding its recycling of the plot of the original Carrie and the contrivances employed to make the same plot happen over again, though he briefly credited Bergl for delivering a good performance considering the weakness of the material.[19] Anita Gates of The New York Times characterized it as "an uninspired updated" and "typical B-movie making. The actors are attractive and do credible jobs, and in the tradition of the original film, there's one really good scare at the end."[20] Both Ebert and Gates commented on the absurdity of the scene at the high school's ruins, which had not been cleared away despite two decades having passed.[19][20] Dennis Harvey of Variety panned the film, noting that it "uses the original as a blueprint, but leaves out all the wit, sympathy and bravado." He criticized the recycling of ideas and even footage from the original film, and found the characters all lifeless, particularly compared to their counterparts from the original film.[21]

Ty Burr of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a more favorable B-minus rating.[22] He wrote, "The most satisfying change writer Rafael Moreu (Hackers) and director Katt Shea (Poison Ivy) have made is to their heroine. Where the original Carrie White was a sheltered, cringing wallflower, Rachel Lang (whose relationship to Carrie is a mid-film secret I won’t spoil) is a foster-home Goth grrrl: pale, defiant, seething with surface-level cynicism. She’s the antithesis of the glamorous faux nerd played by Rachael Leigh Cook in She's All That, and newcomer Emily Bergl portrays her with a nicely sulky empathy, equal parts hurt and hope."[22] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times championed the film as a "well-directed sequel" that treats the supernatural elements as simply obligatory devices while focusing instead on the deep and realistic social drama. He also praised Bergl as demonstrating "exceptional presence and range".[23]

John Kenneth Muir wrote that the abrupt death of Sue Snell was "certainly powerful in terms of shock effect, but it also makes the rest of the film seem incomplete. All the time we invested in Sue goes exactly nowhere and amounts to nothing."[24]

In retrospective reviews, critics praised the film's depiction of toxic masculinity,[7] with some commenting that the focus on the sexual misconduct committed by the male characters makes the film surprisingly timely, particularly in the wake of the MeToo movement.[25][5]

Soundtrack

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The Rage: Carrie 2
Soundtrack album by
Various artists
ReleasedMarch 23, 1999 (1999-03-23)
Length55:14
LabelEdel Records
Carrie soundtracks chronology
Carrie
(1976) 		The Rage: Carrie 2
(1999) 		Carrie
(2002)

The accompanying soundtrack album was released on March 23, 1999, by Edel Records.[26]

Track listing

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No.TitlePerformer(s)Length
1."Crazy Little Voices" (Theme from The Rage: Carrie 2)Ra4:38
2."Quick, Painless and Easy"Ivy4:12
3."Resurrection"Fear Factory6:31
4."Year of Summer"Paradise Lost4:15
5."Low Down"Mary Watt4:17
6."Looking Down the Barrel"Five Times Down3:35
7."Die with Me"Type O Negative7:13
8."Keep Sleeping"16Volt3:14
9."Dark Love"Kate Shrock3:59
10."Laughter Lines"Sack4:20
11."The Slower I Go"L.A.X.2:47
12."Sleep"Trailer Park Pam2:26
13."Spark Somebody Up"Buddha Monk3:47
Total length:55:14

References

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  1. ^ a b c "The Rage: Carrie 2". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved November 8, 2014.
  2. ^ Gunning, Cathal (July 7, 2023). "8 Box Office Bombs That Killed Horror Franchises". Screen Rant. Retrieved July 9, 2023.
  3. ^ "Emily Bergl". TVGuide.com. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
  4. ^ West, Alexandra (2018). The 1990s Teen Horror Cycle: Final Girls and a New Hollywood Formula. McFarland. p. 127. ISBN 978-1476631288.
  5. ^ a b c Dietsch, Drew (September 27, 2018). "[We Love '90s Horror] 'The Rage: Carrie 2' Was Ahead of Its Time as a #TimesUp Horror Movie". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
  6. ^ Jones, Stephen (2001). Creepshows: The Illustrated Stephen King Movie Guide. Titan Books. p. 124. ISBN 978-1840233094.
  7. ^ a b Almeida, Gabriela (December 1, 2021). "Simmering RAGE: Forgotten Feminist Sequel CARRIE 2". Fangoria. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
  8. ^ Hamman, Cody (May 15, 2023). "The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999) - WTF Happened to This Horror Movie?". JoBlo. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
  9. ^ "Katt Shea". The Movies That Made Me (Podcast). Trailers from Hell. January 29, 2019. Event occurs at 43:06. Retrieved March 22, 2024 – via Spotify.
  10. ^ a b The Rage: Carrie 2 audio commentary (DVD). United Artists. 2002.
  11. ^ The Rage: Carrie 2 Production Notes.
  12. ^ "A Conversation with Amy Irving". Blank Check with Griffin & David (Podcast). January 23, 2024. Event occurs at 7:03. Retrieved January 30, 2024 – via ListenNotes.
  13. ^ "Weekend Box Office March 12-14, 1999". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved November 7, 2011.
  14. ^ "The Rage: Carrie 2 Blu-ray release". iHorror. Archived from the original on October 21, 2014. Retrieved November 27, 2014.
  15. ^ "Carrie / The Rage: Carrie 2 Blu-ray Details". Dread Central. February 25, 2015.
  16. ^ "The Rage: Carrie 2 [Double Feature]". Scream Factory. Archived from the original on November 18, 2019.
  17. ^ "The Rage: Carrie 2". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved July 9, 2023.
  18. ^ "The Rage: Carrie 2". Metacritic. Retrieved July 9, 2023.
  19. ^ a b Ebert, Roger (March 12, 1999). "Reviews: The Rage: Carrie 2". Chicago Sun-Times.
  20. ^ a b Gates, Anita (March 12, 1999). "'The Rage: Carrie 2': Uninspired Update, Unintentional Laughs". The New York Times. New York City, New York. Archived from the original on November 18, 2019.
  21. ^ Harvey, Dennis (March 14, 1999). "The Rage: Carrie 2". Variety. Archived from the original on November 18, 2019.
  22. ^ a b Burr, Ty (March 19, 1999). "The Rage: Carrie 2". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on April 30, 2019.
  23. ^ Thomas, Kevin (March 12, 1999). "Well-Directed Sequel to 'Carrie' Rages Against High School Machismo". Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, California. p. D8 – via Newspapers.com.
  24. ^ Muir, John Kenneth (2011). Horror Films of the 1990s. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. p. 638. ISBN 9780786440122.
  25. ^ Heller-Nicholas, Alexandra (March 25, 2022). "Wild Women With Steak Knives: THE RAGE - CARRIE 2 (Katt Shea, 1999)". Fangoria. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
  26. ^ "The Rage: Carrie 2". March 12, 1999 – via Amazon.
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