‘Ready or Not 2: Here I Come’ review: Foul play

Samara Weaving is back for a bigger, but blander game in the undercooked sequel Ready or Not 2: Here I Come.

Have you ever noticed how David Cronenberg looks like Vincent Price nowadays? With the same slicked-back hair, slender cheeks, and piercing stare as the iconic horror actor, it’s funny to think how the acclaimed horror director could start mugging for the camera about Halloween or haunted houses. It’s certainly a more entertaining idea than having him sit in a bed as an aging millionaire grimacing about his disappointing children and the world falling to pieces. When you cast someone like Cronenberg as a wink-wink nudge-nudge inside joke for horror fans in your movie, you need to throw a little pizazz on that idea to make it memorable or at the very least funny. Sadly, it is one of many moments in Ready or Not 2: Here I Come that hint at humor but never hit a home run with.

This is a rare sequel that picks up right where the first left off, with the recently-betrothed Grace (Samara Weaving) covered in blood outside the burning home of her recently-exploded in-laws after surviving a lethal game of hide and seek. Her survival makes the rounds to the most powerful people in the world, including a Latin TV host (Nestor Carbonell), a Chinese CEO (Olivia Cheng), and an aging media mogul (Cronenberg) with two adult children (Sarah Michelle Gellar and Shawn Hatosy) ready to take the reigns. With the help of an erudite lawyer (Elijah Wood), that collection of Satanic high-rollers kidnap Grace and force to play another game of hide and seek with the winner gaining unmatched global influence. The twist? They’ve also kidnapped Grace’s estranged sister Faith (Kathryn Newton) and forced her to play along for the power and her life.

Playtime is over.

The Vincent Price mention earlier isn’t just for Cronenberg; the original Ready or Not was something akin to a haunted house movie. Grace spends that movie jumping from room to room being spooked by some form of a scary monster trying to survive the night. With that, the logical way to do a sequel is to make the haunted house bigger, make the rooms spookier, and the monsters even scarier. Sadly, Ready or Not 2 only hits one of those goals with the new game playing out on everything from a golf course to a Satanic chapel. And yet, returning directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (who also penned the script) don’t do much with those new locations for most of the movie.

Photo Credit: Searchlight Pictures

The first part of the chase takes place on a golf course but there aren’t any boobytrapped ditches or the rich hunters shooting lethal golf balls at the girls. The first kill of the movie happens in a dimly-lit laundry room with the hunter getting awkwardly thrown into an industrial washing machine. There’s even a fight in a casino room without any unique uses of slots or roulette tables. We’re not asking for Looney Tunes-esque wackiness here, but some kind of clever setup and payoff with these unique environments (à la Final Destination) would give the movie some much-needed levity and energy. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett have fun with a wedding-ready reception hall and pepper spray, plus the chapel leads to a neat “eat the rich” moment in the climax. But it takes over an hour in this 107-minute flick to show that (or any) flicker of inventiveness.

That certainly doesn’t hide how routine Ready or Not 2 is either. We have yet another game of lethal hide and seek at a luxurious location where soulless rich folk reveal their ugliest traits while Grace evades them by desperate and aggressive means. The only changes to that formula are the addition of Faith and slight expansion of the lore involving the Satanic council controlling the world. And for a movie as simple and character-driven as Ready or Not, throwing in more lore just bogs everything down. Not to mention the strained relationship between Faith and Grace feels trite and predictable. You could almost time the cliched lines about how Faith is mad that Grace abandoned her when they were younger and how they haven’t spoken in years but Grace never meant to abandon Faith and blah blah blah.

The players.

At the very least, everyone in front of the camera is commits to the buffoonery here. Weaving brings gritted teeth and plenty of attitude back to Grace, making you feel every cut and bruise she takes in the movie. She has plenty of charisma to earn her badass shotgun spree before the third act. It almost makes you wish the whole movie had her going full Ripley in Aliens and being more of a cocky hero who gets more creative in the ways she takes out her hunters. Weaving is a great antidote for the usual frightened blonde in a horror movie, but Ready or Not 2 doesn’t give her enough room to grow.

Photo Credit: Searchlight Pictures

You’d think that room is there for Newton to shine, but her presence is more grating than refreshing. Newton is someone who’s met the mood in a variety of horror-tinged genre flicks (Lisa Frankenstein, Abigail, Freaky). Here though, she’s an aimless, snarky damsel in distress that keeps slowing down Grace and, by proxy, the energy of the movie as a whole. Newton can show so much more charisma and wit when given the right script, but this fails her but not giving her a meaningful moment to show any good comedic timing or over-the-top physicality.

The rest of the cast is pretty limp too. Carbonell tries to bring some suave buffoonery into the mix but he doesn’t last very long. Wood, an icon of genre films and horror buff himself, doesn’t get to ham it up or have any fun witticisms with the others. Even Hatosy, who’s been doing fine work on The Pitt lately, feels miscast in this by underplaying his wickedness in the first half and then suddenly becoming super evil in the movie’s finale. The only actor to come out slightly unscathed is Gellar, another genre icon who knows the exact right combo of cruel and composed to bring to the proceedings.

The bottom line.

The way Weaving begrudgingly rips her blood-soaked wedding guest out of an evidence bag and slides it back on within the first 10 minutes says all you need to know about Ready or Not 2: Here I Come. It’s a routine sequel that’s bigger, but that doesn’t make it better. Instead, there’s bloat, blandness, and not nearly as much fun as there should be. For a sequel coming seven years after its predecessor, you’d think everyone involved would be reveling in the chance to see what else they could do with this premise. Don’t hate the players, hate the game.

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come is now playing in theaters everywhere. Watch the trailer here.

Images courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. Read more articles by Jon Winkler here.

Jon Winkler