Written by Carrie Bergan

CAUTION: This review will have spoilers and compare the two films on what makes this such a good sequel. If you haven’t watched either and don’t wish for anything to be ruined, stop reading. 

I re-watched the first film literally two hours before I went to the theater to watch this one. I’m going to start by saying Ready or Not 2: Here I Come is one of the better movie sequels that I’ve seen in a long time. I love the movie theaters. My husband and I are there watching one at least once a month, even if it’s an anniversary re-run. 

Anyways, this movie was definitely high on my anticipated films of the year, but I was wary of if my expectations would be ruined by having them too high, especially after I was pretty severely disappointed with Scream 7, which came out not too long before. Ready or Not 2: Here I Come met my expectations just about with the balance of continuity from the first movie, while still keeping a heavier topic and maintaining a comedic balance without it feeling like it’s trying too hard to be funny. 

First off, I love that it opens up exactly where the first movie ends. The first Ready or Not is basically a deadly game of hide-and-seek. Our main character and final girl, Grace MacCaullay, has bested the Le Domas family in the game, and since they lost, Satan, otherwise known as Mr. Le Bail, makes them implode as punishment. She’s sitting on the steps lighting a cigarette when cop cars and ambulances show up. They ask her what happened and she says, “In-Laws.” That’s how the first movie ends. 

The second one picks up a few seconds before and after she replies to the emergency team. She passes out. In fact, she flatlines. The ride to the hospital is a back and forth of her being given CPR and flashes back to her wedding day with the game — it’s a wonderfully well done cinematic sequence, if you ask me. 

It’s in the hospital when we find out Grace has a long lost sister, Faith MacCaullay. This broken relationship is what we see flourish throughout the rest of the movie as its main storyline, alongside all the other craziness, as we learn more about Mr. Le Bail and the society he runs. Despite everyone in the Le Domas family imploding into nothing but guts, Grace is seen as a murder suspect, and a cop is ready to take her with Faith down to the station for a statement. However the cop is stabbed in the neck before that can happen. 

Throughout the scenes with Grace, there are brief phone calls and other characters “preparing” for a greater moment that has not quite been introduced to the viewers yet. This man apparently “tried too early” and earns his own imploding demise, which Faith gets to witness first hand. 

Grace and Faith are taken and handcuffed to each other in front of what we are told are the four remaining families in the council, since the Le Domas’s are dead, along with the “The Lawyer,” who is there to make sure everything runs smoothly. So to speak, it’s time for another deadly game of hide-and-seek, where the grand prize is to run the world because, apparently, if you wear this ring, you are the high seat in this council. Very Lord of the Rings if you ask me, except there are no rules in that one. I guess this is more civilized. 

There are a lot of characters, and it might get too confusing if I introduce all of them, so I’m going to at least state that Ursula and Titus Danforth — brother and sister — are the two of highest importance on the council family side. 

Each family remaining is only allowed to send one person starting with the eldest at a time into the fighting ring and may not kill the others or they will face dire consequences from Mr. Le Bail. If the family member in the ring dies, then the next in line must enter and continue or also face punishment. 

All throughout this movie we see kills and blood splatters, as you would expect, until the unlikely happens. One of the families reveals that there is a loophole into surviving, and it would mean Grace would have to get married to one of the men in the council families. Grace later uses this information to offer this proposal to Titus as a way to ensure safety for his sister as well, and he accepts. 

PLOT TWIST TIME! Ursula tries and fails to convince Grace that Titus cannot be “controlled,” and he overhears this conversation. He kills his sister and tells Grace that the rule doesn’t say anything about killing your own family member, just the other families. You better remember that because after all the vows, Grace pulls the same trick on Titus and then renounces all her new power and removes herself from the high seat. She throws the ring into this pit of dead bodies, and it begins the ultimate blood bath killing spree. It’s quite glorious to watch. 

This movie wraps up nicely with Grace and Faith leaving together as Grace promises to never abandon Faith again. The two are sisters once again and freed from the bonds of Mr. Le Bail’s crazy council. I enjoyed this movie immensely, and it did a phenomenal job of being a sequel while delving more into the background of Mr. Le Bail, as he was just hinted at in the first movie. 

My final note is that the reception scene of pepper spray was my favorite and “Total Eclipse of the Heart” has been stuck in my head for a while now. I highly recommend seeing this movie and I rate it a 9.5 out of 10.