Many female-centric films that were originally critically panned have undergone a critical reassessment in recent years. I have always liked Jennifer’s Body, so I’m glad the consensus on that has swung towards the positive. The opinion on Jawbreaker also seems to be gradually undergoing a revision, though I’m not on board with that.
I’m curious to see if 1999’s The Rage: Carrie 2 will ever be deemed ready for a fresh take. This notoriously troubled production…um…carries the baggage of being a completely superfluous sequel, when there was an interesting story, one inspired by real-life events, at its core.
You see, this was originally supposed to be based on the Spur Posse high school scandal of the early 90’s, where a group of boys kept score for the types, and quantity, of girls with whom they had sex. In addition to assault, there were multiple charges of statutory rape. Appallingly, only one violation actually resulted in a sentence, and that was all of one year in juvenile detention.
Instead of telling that story, some genius thought this could be spun into a sequel to the legendary De Palma adaptation of Stephen King’s novel. Then the original director quit and that man was replaced by Katt Shea. Given women are still rarely offered the director’s chair by major studios, I can understand her taking the assignment. That said, it seems telling studios largely extend that invitation when they have a project for which they don’t seem to have much hope.
This film does not start out promising, as the mother of a young girl is taking an interesting approach to painting a room. Not sure where she was able to buy bright red paint with the viscosity of blood, but she is methodically going around the living room, arm extended out, and painting one continuous horizonal line. Some of it ends up on walls, but most of it gets applied to whatever objects are in her way, such as lampshades. The drawn curtains, in particular, get defaced. I doubt this style of room décor will catch on, but I hope some show on HGTV might do this eventually and we’ll see this trend sweep the nation.
Not sure why mom is reacting this way, but it is in response to her daughter having telekinesis. We don’t see much of a demonstration of those abilities, just her slamming shut with her mind a great many doors after she runs through each. I can’t say I was very impressed she could do that, even without using her hands, because if there’s one thing I’ve come to understand young girls do a lot is they slam a shit ton of doors.
She’s placed in foster care and grows into Emily Bergl. The poor girl must have some sort of disability alongside her special abilities since, given the apparent age of the actress, she must be repeating her senior year for the fourth or fifth time now. She also dresses in a manner that I think is supposed to be goth, but which wouldn’t have been very controversial even then. Her character doesn’t seem to stand out much at school, and she is neither very popular nor a pariah. And that is one of the ways the film is very different from its predecessor. Bergl isn’t completely disconnected from society like Sissy Spacek’s character was.
The focus of this film is more about football players at her school engaging in behavior like that of the Spur Posse. Bergl’s 16-year-old best friend surrendered her virginity to one of those guys and she takes a dive off the school roof when he dumps her. Typical of the lack of taste we will see later in the picture’s final set piece, the camera will be placed under the windshield so we can get a good look at her face shattering the glass on impact. That friend is played by Mina Suvari, soon to be famous for American Beauty, so I was worried the guy she slept with was Kevin Spacey. Realizing one slept with him would be a solid motivation for suicide.
The jocks start terrorizing Bergl, thinking they can intimidate her into not giving evidence to support the statutory rape charges Suvari’s one-time partner is facing. At the same time, Bergl has drawn the wrath of popular girl Charlotte Ayanna for stealing her boyfriend (Jason London).
All of these elements culminate in a house party which is clearly meant to be like the prom scene from the first film. Instead of pig’s blood, we have all the televisions showing footage of her having sex with London, as captured by a hidden camera. Seeking to one-up the carnage of the prom scene, we have badly-rendered CGI compact discs skewering partygoers. A completely unconvincing fireplace poker flies through the back of one guy’s head and impales him into a door. What Bergl doesn’t know is that poker went right through the door and killed Amy Irving, the only actor to return from the original Carrie. Now playing the school principal, I’m betting she was glad she couldn’t possibly return if some dim-bulb decides to make this is a trilogy. The most tasteless moments occur in a one-two punch of Rachel Blanchard getting blinded when her glasses burst inward, sending her out of control and accidentally emasculating the guy next to her with her a spear gun. I can’t believe I just wrote that. One CGI I effect I will single out for being appropriate and rather well done is the lines of Bergl’s arm tattoo growing until the thorny vines of it wrap around her shoulders and onto her face.
Perhaps the most unfortunate elements of The Rage: Carrie 2 are the trappings of the era. There will be shifts in visual style for no real reason, such as the occasional few seconds of black and white. It is things like that which had critics of the time lamenting how music video aesthetics were ruining cinema. As far as the film’s overall look is concerned, it so artlessly staged and shot as to make me wonder if it was originally meant to be filmed for television.
By far the worst element is the soundtrack, where desperate record labels hoped there might finally be an audience for acts with names like 5x Down, Transmutator, Trailer Park Pam and Razed in Black. Curiously, one selection here is by a They Might Be Giant’s side project called Mono Puff. Even more bizarre are a couple of Billie Holiday needle drops. Holiday deserves a better movie than this. The Spur Posse victims deserve better. Director Katt Shea deserved a better opportunity. Carrie, a movie for which no sequel could make sense, deserves to rest in peace.
Dir: Katt Shea
Starring Emily Bergl, Jason London, Amy Irving
Watched on Kanopy