Most people are familiar with Stephen King’s book, Carrie, or one of the multiple movie adaptations of it, but a lot of people might not be familiar with its sequel, The Rage: Carrie 2. That’s because, unlike some of King’s other works like Doctor Sleep that were actual sequels made by him, The Rage: Carrie 2 is your typical direct-to-video $5 movie bin cheaply made sequel to a popular movie, and no one involved with Stephen King or the filmmakers of the original movie had anything to do with this.

If you have any familiarity with the story of Carrie, you might be asking yourself: how do you make a sequel to something where the main character dies at the end? The solution here is to set the sequel about 20 years after the original, and center on a new character named Rachel who is starting to experience the same sort of telekinetic abilities that Carrie did. And much like Carrie, Rachel starts to be tormented by some of her classmates, which builds a rage inside of her that causes her to lash out in an explosion towards the end of the movie.

If this sounds like the exact same premise as the first Carrie, that’s because it basically is. One of The Rage: Carrie 2’s biggest problems is that for some it will just end up feeling like a rehash of the first movie. I feel like this is always a bad trap to fall into for a sequel, because it will inevitably start to be compared to its predecessor, and in a case like this will definitely fall short.

Aside from this, the movie is just really poorly made, and it becomes hard to defend a movie when it’s this bad. There are some really strange stylistic choices made by the director, such as randomly switching to black-and-white for certain scenes. Most of the acting is also really bad. I liked Jason London as Rachel’s love interest, and Rachel herself at least works some of the time. But everyone else is just really bad. I will say that the writing definitely needs to be blamed, too, because I don’t know how any actor could work with the dialogue that’s in here.

As bad as The Rage: Carrie 2 is, though, I didn’t hate it. It has this weird charm to it that works. This movie has apparently gained a cult following in the years since its release, with some people even preferring it to the original. While I think that’s definitely a huge stretch, I understand how some people who can turn a critical eye off might enjoy this. For me, the movie definitely started treading into that “so bad it’s good” territory. There was somewhat of a guilty pleasure enjoyment I was having with the movie at certain points, and so while it’s definitely a really bad movie on a structural level, I do think it manages to be entertaining at times. The best example I have of this is that one of the kills at the end of the movie involves Rachel using telekinesis to harpoon a guy in the dick. It’s not good, but it’s fun.

So, the ultimate question that any review should be trying to answer is: is it worth watching? I’d mostly lean towards no, but that’s a no for most general audiences. Like I said, I don’t think this is a good movie by any stretch, but I think that certain people will definitely get enjoyment out of it. If you’re at all a fan of Carrie I think it’s worth watching at least once, and if you enjoy crappy horror movies then I think it’s definitely worth checking out. This isn’t a classic that I’ll want to revisit on occasion like the first Carrie movie, but I also don’t feel like I would never want to rewatch it. It has its charm, and so even though it’s a bad movie, I’m glad I watched it.

2/5