22 Jump Street forever is right. Sequelitis is a powerful drug: taking something everyone loves and giving them more of it can never be bad right? The minute Samara Weaving, covered in blood smoking a cigarette, sat on the steps at the end of Ready Or Not, the movie felt ready and willing to inject Sequelitis right into its veins. So, if the audience partakes, Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come will read more like an exclamation…and not, as the Radio Silence guys pray, a threat.
After murdering all those Le Domas in-laws in self-defense, Grace MacCaullay Le Domas MacCaullay (Samara Weaving) passes out, and ends up in a New England hospital, with the police demanding answers for why these influential rich people are all dead. No need to answer that though, as Grace is kidnapped by a lawyer (Elijah Wood). You see, Grace’s “victory” triggered a meeting of the elites across the world, as the High Seat is now up for grabs. Competing against Grace are other elite family heads: twins Ursula (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Titus (Shawn Hatosy) Danforth, Viraj Rajan (Nadeem Umar-Khitab), Ignacio El Caido (Nestor Carbonell) and his pissed off daughter Francesca (Maia Jae), and Wan Chen Xing (Olivia Cheng). Grace wants out, but the lawyer makes her compete by threatening to kill Faith (Kathryn Newton), Grace’s sister/emergency contact.
The Radio Silence boys (Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin) proved with the 5th and 6th Screams that they can bring something fun and exciting to a franchise needing a jump start. For those films, it was repeated stabbings and fresh blood. For Ready Or Not 2, it’s fresh blood, and well, more blood. Samara Weaving has someone to play off of in this one, with Faith entering the estate battle. Kathryn Newton is a great choice, having a blast playing off of Weaving and the rest of the rich aholes. There’s an “eff you” energy she gives that the movie needs: a wild card between the power struggle the rest of the cast is in the middle of. When the eye rolls bitchy quips start flying between Weaving and Newton, this sequel gives itself something new to plant its flag on. That…and blood explosions. That is Radio Silence’s eff you they bring to the movie, clearly middle fingering all the critiques of the stabbings the Scream cast endured, choosing here to just explode each body so we can be done with the character and move on. All this untethers the sequel from reality, but since this movie is going for goofy first, that sin is at least forgiveable.
As for the rest: we straight up repeat the first film, just on a different property with different awful, stupid rich participants. Shawn Hatosy’s unhinged chilliness makes sure the stakes and danger never wither away as long as he’s around. Sarah Michelle Gellar is Hatosy’s opposite: grounding the film just enough so the audience at least can understand one of this rich people and what’s the reason for the hunt. The rest of the cast is there to die awful deaths, and have a blast with it; props always to Kevin Durand, for always committing hard to whatever his movies ask of him. As for the setpieces, the movie uses rich people settings like golf courses, dining halls, and wedding banquets and enjoys covering them with gore and severed body parts. There’s one great gross kill when we enter the Danforth hotel, but my personal favorite is an inspired battle sequence built around a wedding dance, perfectly encapsulating why people would want to see Ready or Not 2: Here I Come.
As Sequelitis dictates, there’s enough at the end to leave open another Ready Or Not as inspiration strikes. My vote: a weird clause saying any Grace MacCaullay look-alike can compete for High Seat, going where I hoped we would eventually get: a 4 way battle between Samara Weaving, Emma Mackey, Jamie Pressley and Margot Robbie for blonde supremacy. Seriously, look at this and tell me they’re not the same person.
