10 Horror Sequels Not Worth Waiting Decades For

In the 1976 Carrie, the movie adaptation of Steven King's first novel which really put him on the map as not just a big name author but also a source to pump out decades of screen adaptations, the title character lives alone with her overbearing religious mother. So it comes as a bit of a surprise to discover she has a sister going to high school 23 years later in 1999.

That The Rage's protagonist Rachel is a sister fathered by Carrie's absent dad some time after the events of the first movie is actually largely irrelevant to what is in every other respect a charmless retread of largely the same plot beats that her sister already went through decades earlier.

The only returning character or actor is Amy Irving's Sue Snell, who as a result represents by far the most interesting part of the film. Her storyline involving her grief and trauma and years spent in a psychiatric facility before becoming a school guidance counsellor is also the only aspect of the film with any roots in King's original novel. But she is cast aside long before the movie's end.

None of the other characters, including Carrie-lite Rachel, feel like they exist in a realistic world or that their emotional trauma is something the audience is at all invested in, unlike the devastating original.

The original Carrie has been remade twice since The Rage and neither version has captured the imagination like the original did, but both were undoubtedly a better retread than this forgettable trash.