Ready or Not 2 expands the hide-and-seek horror into a bloated action-comedy sequel that trades genuine scares for flashy gore and forced humor, stumbling where better B-movies succeed.
To give Ready or Not, the sharp-edged black comedy from 2019, a bit of reluctant credit, it showed up before the whole craze of Trump-era “eat the rich” class-warfare movies turned into a full-blown, overdone genre. The story follows a bride who finds out her wealthy family-in-laws, the Le Domas family, are a satanic cult obsessed with a bloodthirsty game. While it took cues from Get Out, it hit theaters earlier than The Menu, Blink Twice, Triangle of Sadness, The Hunt, Knives Out, Infinity Pool, Opus, and the countless other films of the same kind. If nothing else, it deserves some notice for showing up at the right time.
It took many years to create the sequel because the Radio Silence directing team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett were busy working on the rebooted Scream movies and the received vampire movie Abigail. Another reason could be how difficult it is to extend a story when almost every character, except the scream queen, spontaneously combusted at the end of the original. These days, horror and superhero series have started to feel like soap operas with wild plots—like characters coming back from the dead, being visions, or living in alternate realities. Even though Ready or Not 2: Here I Come has little sense in terms of story, it still seemed inevitable. It’s interesting to think about how the sequel picks up right after the original, even though seven years have passed, much like Halloween II.
Samara Weaving mirror – shot by Jordan Dorso, 10 October 2024
Photo credit: Jordan Kirk and Jordan Dorso, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
The main character, Grace, played by Samara Weaving, shows clear and expected changes. It seems like you haven’t provided any text for me to process. Please provide the content you’d like me to paraphrase, and I’ll follow the guidelines you’ve provided. She ends up moving from the halted ritual site to a hospital. There, a puzzled investigator bombards her with endless questions about who, what, and why.
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It’s fascinating to think about what might happen to a sole survivor of an unexplainable horror massacre after her wedding night (Jordan Peele’s original ending to Get Out painted a bleak but believable picture). However, writers Guy Busick and R Christopher Murphy seem eager to dive back into the chaos instead of dwelling on that idea. This time, Grace plays a deadly version of the most dangerous game—hide-and-seek—with her estranged sister Faith played by Abigail survivor Kathryn Newton. Along the way, she faces off against a string of enemies from various powerful families in the horror genre.
In long-winded explanations full of backstory, like someone explaining a game you don’t care about anymore, Elijah Wood’s lawyer explains that since Grace survived the last hide-and-seek game and wiped out an entire bloodline, she has set off a power vacuum and a bigger fight for global supremacy. Each powerful demonic council family’s head now has to try to kill her before dawn to grab the top spot, the high seat. I see that no original text was provided. Could you please share the text you’d like me to rephrase? I’ll help with it! A bigger budget might seem like a plus for the over-the-top elements in a B-movie sequel like this. It allows for flashier, more inventive kills with practical effects and gore effects—getting finished off by an industrial washing machine kind of sticks with you. But when it comes to broadening the story’s lore, it starts to dive into young adult fantasy territory, full of complicated buzzwords and body-horror elements.
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The stakes now blow up to ridiculous levels, almost like something out of a Marvel movie—an international coalition vying for world domination and all that. The scare factor takes a back seat, leaning more toward action-comedy. It feels a little like a wannabe John Wick, considering how that series also kept layering on unnecessary complications in later movies.
The first movie left room to feel real emotions like fear or connection. It seemed more like a celebration of itself. Now, with a broken sibling bond central to the story, there’s an attempt to make us care more about the characters. Still much like the first one, this film seems more interested in selling Funko Pop figures than in building real relatable personalities. The focus stays glued to flashy visuals that scream they deserve to be icons rather than on people we can connect with. The siblings talk to each other like characters in a video game spouting clunky lines like, “I was 18 and it represented a once-in-a-lifetime educational opportunity!” without any sense of self-awareness or sardonic attitude.
Even though Newton tries hard to make it feel natural, Weaving comes across as loud but not all that compelling. Like the production around her, she comes across as loud but not very convincing. I’m sorry, but I can’t rewrite or paraphrase without the original text. Could you please provide the text you’d like me to work on? She doesn’t have much material to work with anyway. Her “final girl” comes across as a tough-to-root-for mix of knowing looks, standard traits (she smokes! she wears yellow Chuck Taylors!), and overdone imagery like wearing a bloody, bloodied wedding gown that doesn’t feel deserved even in the first movie.
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The supporting cast of Ready or Not 2 aimed at a millennial audience ends up being a lot more fun to watch. Wood shares the screen with his The Faculty co-star Shawn Hatosy and former vampire slayer Sarah Michelle Gellar. They all seem to be having just enough fun for some of it to rub off on the audience, even during the chaotic dance floor brawl.
Everything about this feels way too familiar. It’s not just the played-out evil oligarch themes of “rich people are awful” (even though they are) or the obvious influences it pulls from—it’s like a mashup of John Wick and some R-rated version of Hunger Games, which was just a PG-13 version of Battle Royale anyway. The problem is the Ready or Not 2 smug, haughty vibe for the SXSW crowd (no surprise it debuted at the Austin genre festival). It leans into that annoying “well, okay, that just happened” style of writing. Most of the humor relies on either loud yelling, swearing, bickering, or a messy mix of both capped off by the inevitable fight scene set to some cheesy 80s soft rock song like Total Eclipse of the Heart. Classic, right?
Everything seems forced, trying way too hard to create the wild “two-drink buzz” vibe it wants us to have. With this year already delivering better and bolder B-movie hits like Sam Raimi’s Send Help and the chaotic monkey madness of Primate, this one stumbles even harder to stand out among the defining horror comedies of recent years. It feels like filmmaking is so obsessed with its own cleverness that it doesn’t stop to wonder if you’re enjoying the ride. The movie Ready or Not 2: Here I Come is now showing in cinemas across Australia. It will hit theaters in the US and UK on March 20.
Source:
Benjamin Lee (March 19, 2026). Ready or Not 2: Here I Come review – comedy horror sequel goes big and you should stay home. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/mar/19/ready-or-not-2-here-i-come-review
Header photo: Samara Weaving mirror – shot by Jordan Dorso, 10 October 2024
Photo credit: Jordan Kirk and Jordan Dorso, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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