1999 was a big year for movies. It was the year that The Matrix‘s slow-motion bullet influenced action movies for years to come. It was the year American Beauty won Best Picture at the Academy Awards and Oscar fans have been arguing about it ever since. It was the year Pokémon jumped from Gameboys and TV to the big screen. And worst of all, it was the year that disappointed a generation of Star Wars fans with the release of The Phantom Menace.
To celebrate that landmark year in film’s 20th Anniversary, The Pop Break continues its year-long retrospective of 1999’s most influential (at least to us) films with staff writer Ann Hale reflecting the wrongfully dismissed, The Rage: Carrie 2.
The Rage: Carrie 2 was released just one month before the April 20, 1999 shooting massacre at Columbine High School. Coincidentally, Carrie 2, like the original, depicts a bullied high school student who takes murderous revenge on the popular students who have tortured her and caused her best friend’s suicide. While musicians like Marilyn Manson were blamed for the violence caused at Columbine, no one batted an eye at the school violence just a month earlier in Carrie 2. That’s how little was thought of the film.
While most people swept the movie under the rug as a less-than-perfect sequel, it really was incredibly relatable. For example, Rachel (Emily Bergl) comes from an abusive foster home and suffers from flashbacks to a childhood with a crazy mother. She is one of the “freaks” at school, constantly bullied by the more popular and prettier girls. At the same time, her best friend Lisa (Mena Suvari) has lost her virginity to one of the popular boys at school, who seemed to really like her until his friends make fun of her appearance. When he tells her that he just used her for sex, she swan dives off the roof of the school.
Look at how many school shootings and teen suicides have taken place since Columbine High School. We live in a country with an obvious bullying problem and very little repercussion for the bullies. In the film, the football players keep a notebook where they keep score for their sexual escapades. Each girl is used and tossed aside for the purpose of a game and this resulted in a suicide. Games like this happened at my high school. People would “befriend” the nerds to take advantage of them and keep them around to make fun of them. No one did anything about it.
My older sister took me to see Carrie 2 during my freshman Spring Break. I loved it. I didn’t understand the hate it was getting from the critics and horror fans. Maybe I loved the film more than most because I could relate to Rachel. She was every kid that I was friends with. I hung around with the weird kids, the horror nerds, the trench coat boys, the kids who were picked on the most. Rachel was us all. We wouldn’t have set the jerks at our school on fire, but we certainly understood the urge to.
Carrie 2 is probably more relevant today than it was 20 years ago. Had it been released today, the film probably would’ve done a lot better in the box office. Then again, with the trend of hating remakes and sequels to beloved films, it’s possible it wouldn’t have. Perhaps Carrie 2 is just meant to be loved by the weirdos, as a love letter of sorts to only us—the ones who understand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7AO7MscMnc
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