It’s crazy it took seven years for the Radio Silence team to bring us Ready or Not 2: Here I Come. In that time, they also released two Scream sequels, relaunching my most beloved franchise for a new generation, while keeping it just fresh enough for us lifers. With Radio Silence (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett) back behind the camera, along with original writers Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy, our favorite final girl, Grace (Samara Weaving), finds herself pitted against something even more dangerous than in-laws.
Picking up at the end of the first film, Grace wakes up in the hospital handcuffed to the bed. Before she can make sense of the situation, her estranged Emergency Contact sister, Faith (Kathryn Newton), arrives. Grace explains the questionable events of her wedding day to Faith, but not before Grace and Faith are kidnapped and taken to Danforth manor, owned by twins Ursula (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Titus (Shawn Hatosy). There “The Lawyer” (Elijah Wood), explains a new game is afoot: It’s double or nothing, and Grace must again make it to sunrise without being killed by a new host of families, all vying for the chance to be the heir to the “Le Bail” fortune, take the High Seat of the Council, and control of the world.
The first Ready or Not was one of very few movies that made me feel giddy when the credits rolled, the other being You’re Next. With an even more wicked control over the mix of comedy/horror, Radio Silence delivers exactly what Here I Come should be: bigger, bloodier, darker, and funnier. While they still may not have gotten the exact balance right with Scream, you could always tell they were playing in someone else’s sandbox. With their own IP, they know exactly what they’re doing and how to bring it to splatacular life.
There may be way more characters this time around, but they all manage to get at least one moment to make their mark, or at least land a great joke to prove their worth. Newton can be hit-or-miss with her performances, but she always tends to thrive when she’s working in something horror related and is a huge delight with amazing rapport with Weaving. Surprisingly, the only one who doesn’t seem to have as much to work with as he should, winds up being Wood as he’s mostly stuck reacting to the shenanigans happening around him. But Gellar gives one of her best, so I guess that evens out.
It’s great that the directors and writers had plenty of time, because it really shows how much they’ve grown into their own franchise. The jokes land better, the deaths mean more, the relationships are funnier, and the references hit harder. A showstopper fight between Weaving and Maia Jae set to an ’80s classic will go down as one of the funniest scenes of the year. And speaking of ’80s classics, make sure to stay through the credits for the resurrection of Grave Diggler’s long lost anthem, “Hell or High Slaughter,” brought back in all its glory by the band’s sons’ own band, Ice Nine Kills. Ready or Not, this sequel, kills.
