The tyranist's thoughts
If there's one thing that these movies teach me it is that teenagers (and sometimes little kids) can be bastards. When this movie came out I wasn't sure why they needed a sequel to Carrie, but it looked kind of cool. At the very least, I found Emily Heigl about sixty times as attractive as Sissy Spacek.
So it is years later. Sue Snell is all grown up now and works as a counselor at the new high school. Rachel (Carrie White's half-sister that no one knows about) is a pretty well adjusted but not popular teen at the school. Then her best friend (played by a personal favourite, Mena Suvari) kills herself over a boy (played by universal dickhead, Zachary Ty Bryan). Rachel's rage starts to manifest itself as telekinetic phenomena, she falls in love and is fallen in love with, and the teenagers decide to make her life hell.
I bet you know how it ends.
There were a few differences from the first, like Rachel being well-adjusted instead of completely lost in the world, but really it is an identical plot. They do have better effects than the first one, but all in all it is still an inferior film. Not out and out bad, just inferior to the first one. I really liked the ending too. Both movies had great endings that I wasn't expecting.
Watching both films back to back makes a fun little mini-marathon and is far better than a lot of other series I can think of. If you liked the first one, give this one a chance. It is different enough that there will probably be many who consider it much too inferior, but I say give it a chance. Who really wanted to see exactly the same film anyway?