The Rage: Carrie 2

In Halloween: H20, Jamie Lee Curtis returns to the scene of the horror 20 years later as a school headmistress. In The Rage: Carrie 2, Amy Irving does the same. Any significance to that? Only that both movies suck, the difference being that the former tries to be funny and isn't, the latter doesn't and is.

In keeping with the mini-trend of having dorky teenage girls strike back (She's All That, Jawbreaker), The Rage features young Rachel Lang (newcomer Emily Bergl, shining despite the material) as a trailer-park toughie with a mother in an insane asylum who counters high-school ostracism by wearing goth duds and making nihilist remarks in English class. She achieves vindication not through a makeover, however, but through telekinesis. When her best friend jumps off a building after being dumped by a gross football player, she seethes with the rage of the title despite falling for one of the jocks, until the inevitable shitstorm descends, complete with spearguns.

Director Katt Shea does some tricks with the camera, but the film's fun comes mostly at the expense of Irving, whose portentous flashbacks to the Brian De Palma original are howlers; her fate gives new meaning to the expression tête-à-tête. Stupid but not boring, Carrie 2 demonstrates that some concepts are best left buried.

-- Peter Keough