When you may have a hit movie lately, inevitably the query at all times arises a couple of sequel. There’s little or no studios love greater than a little bit of useful IP, and the strain to show standalone tales into franchises, no matter their suitability, has by no means been extra obvious. After the success of 2019’s Ready or Not (which obtained optimistic opinions and made a powerful return on its price range) a sequel appeared all however mandated, even supposing everybody from the unique movie – except for Samara Weaving’s unlucky bride Grace MacCaullay – had been killed off. The sequel was formally confirmed in 2024, tailored from a “sister story” that filmmakers Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett have been growing for Weaving and Kathryn Newton, with a script written by Man Busick and R. Christopher Murphy.
Because the title suggests (regardless of the ‘2’ in promotional supplies, the movie itself opts merely for Prepared Or Not: Right here I Come, evidently trusting the viewers to grasp it’s a sequel greater than Searchlight Footage’ advertising and marketing crew do) the movie picks up proper the place its predecessor left off. The bruised, bloody and newly bereaved Grace recovers from her ordeal in hospital, just for it to transpire she’s by accident set herself up for a complete new nightmare. Together with her evil in-laws out of the image, Grace now has to struggle for her life towards a excessive council of cultists from 4 completely different households, beforehand led by shadowy elite Chester Danforth (a welcome cameo from David Cronenberg!) whose grownup twins Ursula and Titus (Sarah Michelle Gellar and Shawn Hatosy) aren’t used to shedding. To make issues worse, Grace is reunited together with her estranged sister Religion (Kathryn Newton) who isn’t happy to see her.
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To an extent Prepared or Not: Right here I Come retreads acquainted floor: the group play one other lethal recreation of cover and search; Grace is carrying her bloodstained wedding ceremony gown regardless of the impracticality of shifting in such a garment; there’s plenty of references to the demonic entity Le Bail who the elites worship. A sequel calls for extra bloodshed too – poor Grace can’t catch a break from the brutality, and there’s an prolonged scene the place Religion takes a beating from Titus which is especially eye-watering. A few of the violence is extra slapstick (tons extra exploding our bodies) and Elijah Wooden’s presence because the neutral lawyer overseeing the ritual helps preserve the horror-comedy stability.
The reconciliation between Grace and Religion feels inevitable from the off, a mandated plot beat to distinction from Ursula and Titus. Weaving and Newton are nicely forged for his or her chemistry in addition to their bodily resemblance, as are Gellar and Hatosy, although the remainder of the ensemble barely get a look-in, decreased to quips and fast exits except Maia Jae, who performs the spurned ex of Grace’s lifeless husband and will get a well-choreographed struggle scene set to ‘Whole Eclipse of the Coronary heart’. There’s nothing refined about these movies, from their Eat The Wealthy messaging to the just-go-with-it in-world lore, however in all of their schlock they strike a welcome tone between winking self-awareness and retro absurdity.
Whereas Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett had delivered a sequel which is finally entertaining and glides by simply on the energy of its forged and gleeful bloodshed, there’s a sense that recent concepts are a little skinny on the bottom, papered over with cartoon violence and a few half-decent twists. It could be finest to give up enjoying whereas we’re forward than danger being the final ones on the celebration.
