Ready or Not 2: Here I Come

2.5/5

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come had an opportunity to be a sequel, almost a decade later, and build upon the very fun world established in the first film. This film squanders that opportunity, giving us a largely soulless retread of the first one which, spoiler alert, worked so well because the film saves the reveal that Satan is real until the very end. This twist is totally earned, reframing the entire film and landing somewhere even scarier than we could have imagined.

Going into the sequel, the film does not have the luxury of any exciting reveals. The film is certainly more. It’s gorier and more brutal than the previous one, and it may even be a bit funnier, but it wastes a great premise and setup for an ultimately safe sequel. I am most disappointed because of the pedigree behind the film. Penned by Guy Busick, who knocked it out of the park with last year’s Final Destination: Bloodlines, and directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who cut their teeth on inventive shorts in V/H/S and Southbound and reignited the Scream franchise before unceremoniously leaving for the most recent addition to the series.

I can’t say I didn’t have fun — I did. Samara Weaving is excellent as Grace MacCaulley, picking up immediately from the first film without skipping a beat. Kathryn Newton is a fine addition as her estranged sister, and I adored Elijah Wood as the devious lawyer behind the Satanic cult, though I wish he had more to do. Sarah Michelle Gellar and Shawn Hatosy, who is particularly nasty given how different his character is from The Pitt, play twins vying for control of the devil’s organization. Sarah Michelle Gellar, our wonderful vampire slayer, is also wasted by the film. She serves as a foil to her brother, but has no character growth of her own and is effectively fridged for the sake of her sibling’s rise to power.

The rest of the cast is not particularly good, serving as caricatures more than anything else, though I did enjoy Antony Hall as a bloodthirsty child dual-wielding fully automatic pistols. Even an actual cameo by David Cronenberg, as the deceased head of the Danforth family and father to Gellar and Hatosy, cruises on his star power more than anything the film gives him to work with.

And that’s really the story of the whole film. It’s a missed opportunity. The world has changed a lot since 2019, when the first film came out, and this one does not seem interested in evolving with it. We add a sister, we up the stakes, but it all feels hollow and boring. It’s a film that is ostensibly fun, but it leaves no lasting impression. It’s a shame because the first film oozed creativity, and this sequel jettisons all that made it interesting, resulting in a disappointing slasher with an inert emotional climax and a forgettable ending.