Ready or Not 2: Here I Come knows exactly why its predecessor was a hit. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s sequel to their 2019 horror, which earned $57m worldwide against its $6m budget, barely gives Grace (Samara Weaving) time to finish her cigarette before she’s knocked back into action. Sat outside the smouldering ruins of her husband’s family estate as the ambulances roll in – they chose to play a deadly game of hide and seek on her wedding night, so she blew them all up – she’s swiftly carted off to hospital, stripped down and patched up, all so she can put right back on the shredded and bloodied remains of her bridal gown for round two.
Her massacre of the Le Domas clan has left a power vacuum within the satanic one per cent, which can only apparently be solved with more deadly hide and seek. Rinse and repeat. It’s not original, but it still works. Horror is the rare genre where you can simply reload the gun and fire off a few new rounds. And, this time, the bullets are of a particularly fine make: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Kathryn Newton, Elijah Wood, The Pitt’s Shawn Hatosy, and, unexpectedly, The Fly director David Cronenberg all make an appearance.
