Halloween Horror Review: Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (2026)

Josh Larsen and Adam Kempenaar of the Filmspotting podcast often use the term “reheat” to describe sequels that simply serve up the same ingredients as the previous film, slightly warmed over. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s Ready or Not 2: Here I Come is a reheat. It takes the same narrative beats, comedic approach, and violent action as its predecessor and gives them to us again. It’s not a foolhardy approach. The first Ready or Not is a fun horror comedy, with an effective skewering of the ultra-rich and the kind of quip-ladden tone that a certain horror viewer absolutely loves. But as with the children’s game of hide and seek, which plays a key part in both films, the second game is never as fun, especially if it comes right after the first.

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come begins right where the first film ends: Samara Weaving’s Grace is in her blood-drenched bridal gown on the steps of her in-laws’ mansion, which is burning down in the background. In the previous film, we watched her survive a deadly game of hide and seek in which her new husband’s uber-rich family hunts her as part of a pact with the Devil. They fail to kill her by dawn and reap the consequences. But they’re not the only uber-rich Satanists in the world, and so in the aftermath, Grace has to play another game with the ruling council of oligarchs that her in-laws used to be a part of. But this time, she has her estranged younger sister, Faith (Kathryn Newton), in tow.

For a movie that’s a comic riff on The Most Dangerous Game (1932), in which the rich hunt the poor, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come is surprisingly bogged down with lore. Much of this is courtesy of Elijah Wood as the Lawyer representing Satan, who often walks around with a giant old tome and nods sagely when others ask him clarifications regarding the rules. But there are so many rules, so many repetitive sequences of the awful wives or children of members of the council having to enter the fray once their family head gets killed in a gruesome manner. You’d think you’d start with the rules and then get to the action, as largely happens in the original film. But no, there are far more rules here, and they consistently interject into the hide and seek mayhem.

Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett are again adept at the mayhem. They play up slapstick pratfalls amidst the violent fisticuffs or vicious duels with swords, muskets, and all manner of archaic weapons befitting an ancient order of Satanists. A memorable fight between Grace and her ex’s ex involves both women temporarily blinding each other with pepper spray only to wildly swing and kick at each other with no idea where the other person is. It’s an absurd visual sequence, and Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett love to play up absurd visuals, none more notable than the council members exploding into a geyser of blood whenever they break the Devil’s rules.

The humour is also effective, if a bit tired after years of Rick and Morty and the self-aware, vulgar, sneering quips that it inspired. Each battle mostly comes down to a formula, where characters fight, there are some jokes in the midst of the violence, and then the villain gets dispatched in some brutal manner. Samara Weaving’s Grace might make a joke or more likely, let out some primal scream, which happens a lot here. Weaving is giving her all throughout, trying to show the desperation of the Final Girl after she’s already survived being the Final Girl. She’s exhausted to start the film, and each beating she takes only amplifies her dejection and fatigue. By the film’s end, as Grace’s wedding dress is now so coated with old blood that it’s effectively black, and she has half a dozen wounds on her, you have to applaud Weaving for leaning into the cartoon nature of the film, and the character.

Newton is not so successful. Most everything that has to do with the sister seems perfunctory—they’re estranged, they make dumb choices in the midst of the game because they’re still upset with each other, and they finally make up because it’s what is expected in these sorts of narratives. Apparently, Newton’s character, Faith, was originally a part of a different concept that Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett had for a two-fer starring Weaving and Newton as sisters, but after Searchlight approached them regarding a sequel to Ready or Not, they worked the sister concept into the Ready or Not world.

Most of the allure here has to do with the big-name cast that makes up the council members. Chiefly, there’s Sarah Michelle Gellar as one half of an evil sibling duo. Gellar knows her character is giving us a glimpse of Buffy if she became a vampire of a sort, so she relishes the haughty performance. Shawn Hatosy, best known as Abbot on HBO’s The Pitt, is her sociopathic brother, and is less successful, even if his character gets to be the most deranged of the council members. David Cronenberg has a cameo as their father, which is always welcome, and the aforementioned Wood nails the tone. Nestor Carbonell and Kevin Durand are amusing in smaller parts. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett are typically smart at playing to the strengths of their casts, as they do in their two Scream entries, but there’s only so much a stacked supporting cast can do when the actual film is fairly repetitive.

By the film’s end, we’re essentially back where we started at the beginning of the film. I can only hope that if Ready or Not 3 ever happens, they come up with a novel approach for satirizing the rich and indulging in ironic quips and amusing bloodshed. I’ve eaten this meal twice now. I don’t need thirds.

5 out of 10

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (2026, USA)

Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett; written by Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy; starring Samara Weaving, Kathryn Newton, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Shawn Hatosy, David Cronenberg, Elijah Wood, Nestor Carbonell, Kevin Durand, Olivia Cheng, Nadeem Umar-Khitab, Varun Saranga

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