Matt Bettinelli-Oplin and Tyler Gillett, together known as the filmmaking duo Radio Silence, made one of my most rewatched horror movies of the past decade, 2019’s Ready or Not. They went onto direct Scream 5 and 6, and 2024’s Abigail, all of which have very similar tones to Ready or Not. Having established a strong track record for themselves, I was very excited to see whatever would come next from Radio Silence. However, I didn’t really think a Ready or Not sequel was a great idea. The first film kind of has a perfect ending and a sequel could undo all of that. So I was skeptical walking into Ready or Not 2: Here I Come this afternoon. The advertising material was promising, the trailers were fun, but how many times have we seen a lousy movie fool the audience with a good trailer? What I’ve learned today is I shouldn’t have doubted Bettinelli-Oplin and Gillett. They haven’t let me down yet. 

Picking up immediately after the first Ready or Not, we find Grace (Samara Weaving), having just survived a horrifying evening being hunted by her new husband’s family on their wedding night, having defeated every member of the Le Domas family. Grace couldn’t have known surviving this night would lead to something much worse – a next-level game involving several rich families associated with the same demonic cult as the Le Domas family. This time, her estranged sister Faith (Kathryn Newton) is roped into this after she decides to visit her sister in the hospital at the wrong time. Together, the sisters must defeat a larger and more terrifying crowd of wealthy parasites, if they want to make it out alive. 

I was not optimistic going in and there are few things I love more than when a movie proves me wrong. Ready or Not 2 is bigger, funnier, bloodier and crazier than the first in every way I could’ve wanted, and it avoids a lot of the usual sequel traps that plague an otherwise promising follow up. It’s bigger, but it’s not much bigger. It’s expanding the lore established in the first movie, but not in ways that feel clunky or confusing. The film is simultaneously going all-in on the aspects that made the first film work, but it’s also not trying to do too much. It helps that Bettinelli-Oplin and Gillett seem to be going after something that feels pointedly different than the preceding film. 

Ready or Not 1 was about how wealth corrupts people. How even people who Grace thought she could trust ended up betraying her, because the richer you are, the less humanity you have. Here I Come is also about the corruption of wealth, but it’s also about how when one real-life villain is eliminated, ten more fill their place. It’s a film about power, control and ultimately, with the addition of Newton’s character, the importance of family. One problem I had with the first Ready or Not, a film I mostly loved, was that we never really got any sense of Grace’s backstory. She could have been just anyone. What we learn about her past, and her relationship with the estranged sister, adds compelling depth to this character and her overall narrative.

It also helps that Samara Weaving has now fully embraced the horror scream queen archetype. The first film felt like a lot of her character reacting to things that were out of her control, and in the end she’s taking back that control, but she really just got lucky with what happens in the final scenes. This film is about her fully leaning into her power, and Weaving is clearly having a blast. I also very much enjoyed her chemistry with Kathryn Newton, an actress who’s also established herself in this genre, with a deranged and batshit performance in Christopher Landon’s Freaky. Not only are they perfectly cast as sisters (they really do look alike), but the more we learn about this relationship and why it’s strained and how it slowly rebuilds over the course of this film, gives the script an emotional core the first film doesn’t quite have. Both actresses are given so much to have fun with, and they’re a delight to watch together.

We’ve also got some really fun players in our supporting cast. Elijah Wood is having a ball as a character only referred to as ‘the lawyer’, who is overseeing this sick, twisted game. He’s got a very calm and menacing presence, and he’s clearly having so much fun with this material. Sarah Michelle Gellar plays Ursula Danforth (great villain name), who is working alongside her toxic brother Titus, played by Shawn Hatosy. We don’t see Gellar enough these days and it’s so fun to see her sink her teeth into something really biting and mean. She’s giving Ursula layers and refusing to let her be a one-note villain. Also, David Cronenberg makes an appearance early on in the film as the dying Danforth patriarch, and I couldn’t imagine better casting. 

Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murray return alongside Bettinelli-Oplin and Gillett, and maybe that’s why this film seems so of a piece with the original. Most of the original crew is back, including cinematographer Brett Jutkiewicz, who gives the film a dark and menacing, but also somehow lightweight vibe. But Busick and Murray’s script feels like it’s leaning into the aspects that made the first film work, but also isn’t trying to just play the greatest hits of that film, which is a tempting fatal flaw for screenwriters penning sequels. Busick and Murray, as well as the Radio Silence guys, are clearly trying to expand the lore of this cult, this criminal underworld, and I could totally see this world building expanding in future films, similar to what happened with the John Wick franchise. 

Did Ready or Not really need a sequel? Probably not. But now that we have one, I’m very glad it’s here. Here I Come gives Samara Weaving space to do more of what she did so well in the first film, and I’d love to see her continuing to work in the horror genre. She’s got an immediately compelling chemistry with Kathryn Newton. The new supporting cast is fun, the script is sharp and snappy, never lingering in one place too long, and never becoming repetitive. Ready or Not 2: Here I Come does what all the best sequels do, it expands the world of the first, gives its universe more subtext and detail, but it never overcomplicates the plot. It also never becomes muddled under the ambition that’s clearly in the script. 

I’ve seen a lot of people make the joke that we have the Ready or Not sequel this week, and the very similar-looking They Will Kill You releasing next week. This has led to an online discourse about whether or not we should retire the ‘eat the rich’ horror movie. I haven’t seen They Will Kill You yet (more on that next week), but I’m firmly of the opinion that if the rich keep doing terrible things and getting away with them – which they are, perhaps never more egregiously than right now – that these films have a good reason to exist. And it’s never not satisfying to see these people get what they have coming to them.