A One Mann’s Movies review of “Ready or Not 2: Here I Come”. (2026, 3*, 15).
I only saw “Ready or Not” earlier this week in preparation for seeing this sequel and I’m glad I did. Since there is a lot of backstory that the very brief flashback scenes struggle to fully convey. “Ready or Not 2” literally picks up from the moment the last film finished and takes us on another convoluted and violent tale of satanism and revenge.
One Mann’s Movies Rating:
Plot:
Grace (Samara Weaving) has survived the evil plans of the Le Domas family, who now lie dead in their burning mansion. But the Le Domas’s were just one part of the High Council of families, who literally run the world, and Grace’s ordeal is not yet over.
Certification:
UK: 15; US: R. (From the BBFC website: “Strong bloody violence, gore, threat, drug misuse, very strong language”. I actually think, due to some extreme man-on-woman violence, discussed below, that this should have been an “18” certificate. For me, this deserves it more than the original film. I’ve written to the BBFC to tell them as much.)
Talent:
Starring: Samara Weaving, Kathryn Newton, Elijah Wood, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Shawn Hatosy, David Cronenberg, Dan Beirne, Olivia Cheng, Antony Hall, Varun Saranga, Nadeem Umar-Khitab, Masa Lizdek, Nestor Carbonell, Maia Jae, Juan Pablo Romero, Kevin Durand, Kara Wooten.
Directed by: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett.
Written by: Guy Busick, R. Christopher Murphy & Matt Bettinelli-Olpin.
Running Time: 1h 48m.
Summary:
Positives:
- So this is another fun comedy/horror romp in very much the same vein as the first film. There are many different types of horrible death meted out and gallons and gallons of blood: even more than the first film, if you can believe that, particularly in the explosive finale which made me guffaw!
- Samara Weaving again impresses as Grace: her (understandable) ‘meltdowns’ are all very well done. It was great (and a clever touch in the script) to put her back into the same outfit that she was in for the first film. Adding interest to the piece is the inclusion of a sister, Faith, that we didn’t know about. Faith is played by Kathryn Newton from “Ant Man: Quantumania” and the very similarly blood-soaked “Abigail“.
- It’s also great to see Elijah Wood back on the big screen, with Sarah Michelle-Gellar being the other ‘big name’ within the cast. Its also fun to have two alumni from “Lost” in the cast: the ever-striking Nestor ‘Man in Black’ Carbonell plays the head of one of the families, Ignacio El Caído, and Kevin ‘Keamy’ Durand makes an early exit as a headstrong wannabe leader.
- With a much larger ensemble cast, the film had less of a feeling of “Ready or Not” and more of the feeling of one of the Knives Out films to me. That was not a bad thing as there were nearly always interesting people on screen.
- Having the film set in an enormous resort and casino complex at least made the game of hide and seek slightly more believable than in the first film!
Negatives:
- The sequel lacked the pure simplicity of the original film. Whereas the bloody denouement for most of the characters in the first film could be easily explained (dawn comes!), here we need to have a complicated set of sub-reasons for the bloody death of a player.
- I also couldn’t work out the connection between the Le Domas family and the Danforths. Or why any of this business with Grace needed to happen anyway, other than revenge which didn’t seem to be a primary driver for most of the players. There seemed to be a lot of hand-waving going on in the story.
- This is a VERY violent film but, as with the original, most of the violence is pretty cartoonish. BUT the film overstepped the line for me with a sustained attack by Titus Danforth (Shawn Hatosy) on Grace in a hotel corridor. Firstly, this is a hospitalising, or potentially morgue-visiting, beating yet we see Faith in a subsequent scene as right as rain. (The same can be said for Grace: lacerated, speared, but apparently still OK for a new dress and make-up.) But I abhor violence against women and my main complaint is that this sequence is brutal, plain nasty and not in the fun spirit of the movie at all. (A full half point knocked off my rating for this.) You may think this unreasonable: “but it’s just a film Dr Bob”. But how many weak or bitter husbands might leave the cinema, have ‘a few’ at the pub on the way home and then decide to act out as Titus when they get there? Sure, they are probably 18+ anyway… but the same goes for perhaps more influenced 16 and 17-year-olds, wanting to take their aggressions out on their girlfriends.
Summary Thoughts:
A generally fun time at the cinema with this one, but it lacked the simplicity and some of the style of the original film. In particular, it overstepped the mark with its violence against women in one scene in particular.
Where to watch?
Trailer:
The trailer for the film is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K3sNRm8J0w.
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