MGM/UA made a very large mistake last year with "Disturbing Behavior". It was their first attempt to try the teen horror genre and in the process of cutting the picture, they edited it down
to nearly nothing. If you've seen the DVD, you'll see that, although not great, there were quite a few good moments taken out of the film.
Let me calm down before I go any further. Ok. Moving on, I must say that MGM made a mistake of a different kind with "Carrie 2". Not only is it an obvious attempt to find any sort of gimmick
to make another attempt at the teen genre, it's truely a film without any redeemable features. Imagine a film where not one shot works; I didn't find an effective or interesting moment
out of the 104 minutes. I must say that I found most of this film absolutely traumatic to have to sit through. I spent moments here and there only listening, because the film was simply so painful that I had my head
in my hands. I simply could not watch it. I could not stand it.
The film starts off with a woman painting a red line around the room in her house. Apparently this is meant to show that the mother of the film's main character, Rachel, is trying to fend
off "evil" sprits from her young daughter. The scene is so low-key and silly that I found it laughable. Laughter is not exactly a good way to start off a horror movie. Of course,
the authorities take away the mother and Rachel is left to grow up with a pair of really dopey parents. At the breakfast table, the parents talk about just how soon their young daughter
is leaving. Apparently, they're in it just for the money they get from the state for taking care of her. Not exactly sympathetic characters.
Rachel is the main character in this sequel and, of course, it's only a matter of moments before we find out that she has telekenetic abilities, but the film seems to forget about them
mainly, until the end. The events of the film are kicked into place in the begining of the film when Rachel finds out that her best friend was seduced by the local college jock. Finding
out that the boy was only after her as a "game" to see if he could successfully seduce her, the girl takes a jump off the school roof. Uh, the character was happy 10 minutes ago. A boy
dumping her sends her off the roof? Doesn't that seem a little unrealistic? Have the writers been to high school lately? Do they realize how strong the emotions are of today's teen females and
that, under normal circumstances, a girl today would just seek the company of friends to talk to in this situation instead of jumping off the roof and falling, face first, into a car window? It's just the start of the
almost constant tastelessness and stupidity contained in this picture.
Soon, Rachel finds herself in love with one of the jocks, played by Jason London. The two
hit it off and he likes her. He really likes her, believe it or not. This is one of the strange problems. It's supposed to be a horror film, but the middle of the film seems to be some
sort of strange romance is being mixed in. The only problem is, the dialogue is even below that of the recent teen film, "She's All That". Here, the dialogue is along the lines of "how are you?" "I am fine."
Just 104 minutes of inane, dull filler. The smallest of small talk. The two of them have a less than interesting talk at a local restauraunt: she talks about walking home. He says no. She
says that she'll just wait for her limo. Wait, I get it....was that supposed to be funny? If so, I'm not laughing. The film is made up completely of exchanges like this and it gets
very, very dull very quickly. The middle of the film is made up of these slow, boring exchanges between Rachel and Jesse, her new boyfriend. The two have such uninteresting conversation it only
makes it ever more apparent that both characters have absolutely, positively no chemistry together. Bergel at least tries to rise above the performance; London and the entire rest
of the cast(every last one of them) don't even make an attempt to act. Even that kid I can't stand from "Home Improvement" is in this film as the jock that torments Rachel. His performance is so poor
that I really hope I don't ever have to watch him in a film again.
The technical aspects of the film are truely horrible. I've seen better looking independent films. Lighting is awful in some of the scenes where the scene is so dim that you can barely
make out the faces of the character. This isn't a style choice. It's a cheap choice. Cinematography is fairly poor as well; one of the scenes has the focus going from the characters
in the background to the characters in the foreground back to the background. In a better film, that may work, but I'll simply say it's a mess here; I wasn't sure where to look and by
the time it was over, the scene had ended. Images seem to lose focus now and then as well.
Of course, we have the final scene where Rachel gets revenge on the rest of the class. It's a scene so poorly concieved that it had most of the audience I saw this film with laughing.
The rest of the film has been so mild mannered that this explosively gory and violent scene seems completely random and out of place within the rest of the film. Most of the gore
is way over-the-top and completely tasteless. Like the rest of the film, it's not entertaining, it's not interesting and it's staged with no attempt at trying to make an effective
scene. There is also a very quick after-ending scene that ends the film on a perfect note; it's such incredible nonsense that it fits with the general tone of complete stupidity that runs
through the rest of the picture.
Questionable choice of directors as well. Apparently, MGM could only get Katt Shea, who has directed many movies that I don't even think made it to cable television, with the exception
of the Drew Barrymore vehicle "Poison Ivy" and even that was nothing to be pleased about. I've seen films directed by students in their late teens and early 20's I know that I found far more entertaining in story and direction.
I've seen what seems like over a thousand films in the seven or eight years that I've been reviewing films. If this isn't the very worst film I've really ever seen, it's up there in the
top three. This is a slow, tedious and boring film. It is so lame that, in any other instance, you'd forget about a film like this the second you leave the theater. This film is so bad
it may haunt you for a few days, or maybe even a few weeks. There is nothing remotely worth watching in this picture. Poor script, direction, acting, cinematography, lighting, editing, a
REALLY terrible soundtrack and the list goes on. This is a film where simply, there isn't even a good frame; shot for shot, nothing works. Do yourself a favor and save yourself from this truely mind-numbing and tedious
picture, it's truely the lowest of the low. MGM should be completely embarassed with themselves.
