[Blu-Ray Review] ‘Carrie’ & ’The Rage: Carrie 2’ Double Feature: Now Available On Blu-Ray From Scream Factory

Carrie (2002 TV) & The Rage: Carrie 2 (2-Disc Double Feature) [Blu-Ray]

Release Date: Now Available on Blu-ray

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Disc Rating: 8.5/10

Film Synopsis’:

CARRIE: Angela Bettis (May) stars in this 2002 adaptation of Stephen King’s classic tale of horror and retribution, featuring eye-popping special effects and a shocking, all-new twist ending! Carrie White (Bettis) is a lonely, awkward teenage girl who just doesn’t fit in. At school, she endures her classmates’ constant ridicule, and at home she suffers endless psychological torture at the hands of her fanatically religious mother (Patricia Clarkson, Six Feet Under). But Carrie has a secret. She’s been cursed with the terrifying power of telekinesis. And when her tormenters commit an act of unforgivably cruel humiliation at the prom, they’ll soon learn a deadly lesson. Taking its inspiration from King’s book rather than the original film, Carrie was written by Bryan Fuller (TV’s Hannibal, Pushing Daisies) and stars Emilie de Ravin (Lost), Katharine Isabelle (See No Evil 2, Ginger Snaps) and Chelan Simmons (Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil).

THE RAGE: CARRIE 2: In this horrifying 1999 sequel to Brian DePalma’s 1976 classic, Rachel (Emily Bergl, The Knick) is a high school misfit who gets caught in the middle of a vicious prank orchestrated by a group of jocks that turns deadly. Once the police bring one of the boys in for questioning, his teammates target Rachel for squealing, and hatch a devious scheme to publicly humiliate her. But messing with Rachel is worse than playing with fire, for when her temper’s crossed, it triggers a powder-keg of anger and unleashes horrifying powers that turn a wild teen house party into a wilder mad-house inferno! Also starring Jason London (Dazed And Confused), Rachel Blanchard (TV’s Clueless), Mena Suvari (American Beauty) and Amy Irving (reprising her role as Sue Snell from Brian DePalma’s original Carrie), this fast-paced, white-knuckle revenge fantasy takes telekinesis to the next level of terror!

Get ready for two times the high school drama with some deadly telekinesis-filled revenge mixed in for good measure as Scream Factory brings home another great Double Feature release, this time featuring ‘Carrie’ (the 2002 TV Movie version, not the original film from the 70’s just to clear up any potential confusion) and ‘The Rage: Carrie 2’ which are both available here on Blu-Ray for the first time ever in a more than reasonably priced collection. Unlike many Double Feature releases, Scream Factory also treats us to a 2-Disc set for this release with a BD-50 disc dedicated to each film so fans won’t have to worry about all of the content fighting for bitrate here; in fact the video presentation on the 2002 ‘Carrie’ TV film takes up nearly 35 GB worth of data in itself.

Fans of the ‘Carrie’ TV film and/or ‘The Rage: Carrie 2’ (which serves as the Theatrical sequel to the original film adaption from the 70’s) will absolutely want to pick up a copy of Scream Factory’s Double Feature Blu-Ray release. It includes solid high definition video and audio presentations for both films and even what appears to be a never before seen widescreen transfer of the 2002 TV movie on disc one with seemingly new video data on the sides of the screen and all (more detailed information regarding this can be found in the video section of the technical specification coverage below). Take all of that, the incredibly cheap price, plus a number of great bonus goodies including Audio Commentaries for both films and more (again, more detailed info regarding the bonus content can be found in the special features section of the technical specification coverage below) and I’m sure fans will find that it’s more than worth picking up a copy to add to their collection.

VIDEO:

Scream Factory’s Double Feature Blu-Ray release of ‘Carrie’ & ’The Rage: Carrie 2’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation for both films.

The rear of the case lists ‘Carrie’ as being presented in a full frame 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio, although in actuality it is surprisingly presented in a 1.78:1 Widescreen Aspect Ratio. A colleague and I did some digging regarding this as the film has previously never been available in any format other than 1.33:1 4×3 and after some comparison it appears that this may very well be a new high definition source with additional (and never before seen) video material on the left and right of the screen which will surely be a delightful surprise for fans. The video presentation here is a bit hit or miss which is quite likely due to the quality of the original TV film and while some moments are drastically sharper and more detailed than others, it’s still overall pretty decent and surely the best video quality you will find in existence for this TV movie.

‘The Rage: Carrie 2’ features a 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio representing its original theatrical Aspect Ratio. The video presentation on this one looks pretty great as a whole and delivers a bright, rich and detailed picture that looks great throughout and even holds up impressively during the darker sequences, never resulting in any of the activity occurring on screen to become indiscernible in any way. There is a fair amount of grain and some mild video noise but it doesn’t detract from the viewing experience and if anything it does a great job of representing what one would imagine the original film source would look like. Overall, this is a top notch high definition video presentation that should not disappoint.

AUDIO:

While the rear of the case lists only mono audio for both films, everyone can rest assured that that is not the case and interestingly enough, there actually isn’t a mono track on either. The Blu-Ray release includes the option of both lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 soundtracks on both ‘Carrie’ & ’The Rage: Carrie 2’. I myself of course chose to watch both titles with the lossless 5.1 channel DTS-HD MA soundtrack utilized and both sound pretty decent overall, although ‘The Rage: Carrie 2’ definitely stands out in many ways, not only in taking far more advantage of the surround channels but also in overall sharpness and clarity. While the 5.1 track on ‘Carrie’ is in no way poor, it’s also no surprise that a theatrical film would provide a sharper and more impressive lossless soundtrack than a TV movie just as it does here.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Scream Factory’s Double Feature Blu-Ray release of ‘Carrie’ & ’The Rage: Carrie 2’ includes some nice extra goodies.

The first disc (Carrie) includes an Audio Commentary with Director David Carson and the TV movie’s Trailer.

The second disc (The Rage: Carrie 2) includes a bit more in the way of extras, including a number of Deleted Scenes (approximately 7 minutes worth in total), plus an Alternate Ending with ‘Before and After’ Special Effects Sequence (1 minute). Also included are two Audio Commentary tracks: A new Audio Commentary with Director Katt Shea and Director of Photography Donald Morgan, along with the Original Audio Commentary with Director Katt Shea. The Theatrical Trailer is included as well.