Ready or Not: Here I Come | rated R | starring Samara Weaving, Kathryn Newton, Sarah Michelle Geller, Shawn Hatosy, Elijah Wood, Nestor Carbonell & David Chronenberg | directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett | 1 hr 48 mins | 3 out of 5 stars |
Nearly 10 years after the surprising, stylish and fun Ready or Not put Radio Silence on the horror movie map, and got them the chance to reboot Scream, here comes a sequel that isn’t bad as unnecessary sequels go.
In movie-time, no time has passed at all for Grace Macaulley (Samara Weaving) after vanquishing her ghoulish in-laws in a people hunting game of hide and seek. Picking up on that film’s perfectly snappy ending we follow her from the house stairs to the hospital to meeting her long-lost retconned sister Faith (Kathryn Newton, becoming something of a scream queen herself). Quicker than you can say Halloween II she is pulled back into a new threat and a new game in the same clothes she survived the last night.
To sequelize Ready or Not, writers Guy Busiak, R. Christopher Murray and returning writer-directors Radio Silence (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett) go the route of John Wick and Hostel. Taking a straightforward, streamlined premise which was most of the first film’s charm and build out an elaborate universe for it. Grace’s in-laws weren’t the only family that sold their soul to the devil for wealth, now she comes up against the elites who control the world with the current occupant of the satanic thrown being the Danforth family – sister Ursula (Sarah Michelle Geller, in a real role), brother Titus (Shawn Hatosy) and father Chester (yes, that David Chronenberg). Now Grace and her sister have to survive a horde of elites across the Danforth manor for control of the high counsel seat.
Now that Grace knows what’s going on all the surprises have been uncorked. Instead, we get a behind-the-scenes look at how these hunts are put together as the call goes out and the wealthy assemble from around the world at Manor Danforth. Exposition dumps need not be a bad thing and here we get a good one, well written and well executed. It’s a lot of fun watching Elijah Wood, as seemingly the Devil’s lawyer, drop a satanic text thicker than several encyclopedias on the podium and calmly deliver the new rules for the new game. Yes, it’s all very John Wick 2 and Hostel Part 2 but where those movies evolved and grew in their world building, the world of Ready or Not isn’t quite as big. Still wacky, yes, but it amounts to a lot of repeating more of the same then building out a new and exciting world. It’s bigger, but loses some of that quirky charm in the process.
Ready or Not worked because of that gothic vibe, nice mix of comedy and blood and the terrific finale. What didn’t work in it was the writing, which more often than not went to Grace cursing as a punchline. There is a crucial miscalculation in the setting here, replacing the gothic Addams Family vibe of the first film with more generic hotels, woods and service hallways. The Victorian weapons replaced with less interesting guns, drones and sniper rifles. The charm is dialed down by degrees here, blowing out of proportion and shining a light on the cracks that were more cleverly obscured in the first film – namely that this movie’s idea of a joke is watching 4 people screaming at each other.
The fun explosion effect that ended the first film is run into the ground here, and the kills aren’t particularly clever (even an industrial washing machine kill doesn’t land). Still Here I Come is serviceable – fun enough with a few choice morsels to hold us over. I’d much rather see a movie that strives to entertain and doesn’t quite hit the mark than something like last month’s Scream 7, where nothing works on a fundamental level from the ground up. It’s got to be weird to be Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett, watching the series you brought back to life turn into an abortion against your own new movie.
Yes, this movie is about a secret society of Satan-worshipping elites that control the world. In 2026, this movie couldn’t be more topical. Thankfully nobody pulls punches here. While remaining a tried-and-true devil-worshipping genre film Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett stay out of the political fray as they did the first time Ready or Not squared off with the other people hunting movie, the on-the-nose would-be political satire The Hunt.
The Satan-worshipping hinted at in Ready or Not is gone all in on here and at the risk of sounding like RogerEbert.com that feels hyper-contemporary. In a world where the idea that a network of devil-worshipping elites runs the world is more nightly news than horror movie fantasy, this movie plays things just fun enough to be taken as either a poke in the eye to those people or astro-turfed Google search cover for those people (curiously, no politicians are in this group). Regardless of the intentions of the filmmakers, if you’re wondering why the studio greenlit a sequel to Ready or Not in 2026 after all this time, that just might be your answer.