Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (2026) - Film Review
- Neyouno ケカ
- Apr 1
- 8 min read
A Wonderful Cinema Experience
Introduction
It has been roughly 7 years since the original Ready or Not film had come out, and while me and my partner enjoyed it, we mostly had issues with the ending leaning more into the Sci-Fi elements and the humour not landing as well. Lately films have not been interesting enough for me to decide to go to the cinema, however my girlfriend and I have been looking for something to see and to our delight we saw the sequel to that film we sorta kinda liked few years back, turns out it's 7 years back because time isn't a real concept apparently. What was supposed to be a little break from the norm and a return to cinema ended up being one of the most enjoyable film going experiences ever! While the film wasn't breathtaking or a masterpiece it was incredibly fun and thoroughly enjoyable. The major issue with the film was a weaker supporting cast, mostly in terms of character development, but it made that in spades with style and entertainment value.
Opening
While the goal of this review is mostly to convey the general enjoyment of the film, I cannot avoid analysing the absolutely magnificent opening to this film. Starting off a sequel is generally quite hard, because you need to smoothly transition into the new story while obviously respecting the film that came before, and this film does so masterfully. The story sequel begins with the exact same shot that the first film ended on, Grace, the protagonist, is sitting at the steps of her late husband's burning estate, lights a cigarette, pulls a smoke and logically faints, she is then promptly rushed to the hospital and resuscitated on the way there. The cinematography in this sequence is superb, from the shots following Grace's head, to the make-up and costume design, it perfectly conveys the feelings you would expect going into such an action packed sequel. While Grace is tattered and beaten but she refuses to give up which is a poignant theme for this film. The music during this opening section is also brilliant, it is a cover of the song 'Will You Love Me Tomorrow', which fits really well in the context of will Grace continue to be strong tomorrow, continue to persevere and best the devil once more.
The Sequel
Rather than analysing in depth what works about this film and going scene by scene and doing major analysis i want to highlight the factors that made it stand out to me as a sequel. Giving Grace a sister to work off of did wonders to her character. In the first film the only time we actually got to see her character was in the beginning before the first Hide and Seek game, however during the rest of the film we were able to see quite little of her as a person and as a character and most of her growth was through physical perseverance, while the focus was on the side characters. In the sequel the case is quite flipped the main characters in this case the sisters are the main driving forces of character development while all but 2 of the side characters get next to no development. The cast is more colorful and interesting this time round, however they are mostly bland two dimensional stereotypes and they mostly fit the same cookie cutter description of wealthy jerks who don't care for human life nor do they care about excelling in the one game they have to excel. The abandoned sister dynamic and adds so much layer to Grace's character, and the moments of downtime really are used up well to convey the broken bond being rebuilt between the sisters, even though the film didn't execute it flawlessly as it needed to reignite the feud before the third act it also respected the fact that such a long term issue cannot be fixed over one conversation, even though that conversation is happening while they are actively being hunted by a satanic cult. The most obvious improvement from the first film was the cinematography as well as the costume and set design. We have moved on from a single mansion onto an entire complex, allowing for a lot more diverse set design and naturally a more diverse scene selection. Another huge improvement on the first film is the fact that this film had actual themes which I would like to cover separately. Overall the second film is not only good on it's own it is definitively a great sequel.
Themes
The main theme of the first film was pretty much Grace's perseverance with her in-laws and the discovery of the satanic cult. This theme was somewhat undermined by the revelation that the cult itself was actually true, because the film was mainly setting up a scenario where the family was mostly crazy, rather than the devil storyline being true. While this didn't work for me in the first film, going into the second one already expecting this to be the set up, i was quite welcoming of the sci-fi elements and the cult plotline. The fact that they expanded on the world by showcasing how obviously satan wouldn't just be making a pact with just this one family, and how obviously families in cohorts with the devil would be the ones secretly running the world. So, not only are the themes deeper but so is the worldbuilding. While it being slightly on the nose and even pointed out in the text itself the story is of Grace and Faith fighting Satan and his cult, it is quite poetic in a way and the text calling it out and the actual satan worshiper disliking it is a cute nod. In this case the story of perseverance is expanded onto the perseverance of faith and doing so in grace against the forces of evil and the themes are showcased in much stronger ways. The core of this is obviously the sister relationship we have pervading every layer of the film, which obviously culminates in the third act with the sisters having a big fallout, getting separated and then risking everything and throwing everything at the wall just in hopes of saving each other. The scene where Faith is staring down Titus the literal embodiment of everything bad that the film is, not so well, portraying is quite strong imagery, which makes Titus' death at the hands of Grace so much more impactful. The most on the nose I'd say moment in the film is the actual ending of all of the satan followers jumping into the goat pit and killing each other over the throne and in the process all of them dying as a result of their greed, and while it truly is on the nose it is so masterfully done with the visuals, the music the editing it simply feels good to watch it all unfold.
Other Things I Enjoyed
It would be amiss if i were to not mention little details that simply made me adore this film. Elijah Wood's portrayal of the Devil's advocate was superb, his comedic undertones were spot on for every scene he was in, his somewhat distaste of everyone who has made deals with the devil was quite intriguing, especially bundled with the nods Grace received from the devil himself. I adored the gag of him already being prepared for when someone was going to blow up, and simply hiding himself to not get blood splatter all over.
I also quite enjoyed the decision to keep Grace in the same bloody dress from the first film, it kept the symbolism strong throughout the film, and honestly the visual is quite bad-ass so it just fits quite well.
One thing you usually don't see in majority of these types of films is a somewhat realistic justification of these women being able to take on supposedly stronger men, and while both Grace and Faith are untrained, they continuously make sure to use force multipliers while taking out their foes, and rather than directly overpowering them they do outsmart their attackers, who are for the most part shown to be inept, like the sniper guy who never trains and misses every goddamn shot. While it is quite unrealistic that they would be surviving this severe of a beatdown, it is quite nice to see them use tools to take out their foes rather than just being Rambo in a gown.
I also quite enjoyed that the loophole in the legal documents that was mentioned at the start wasn't used as a gag nor forgotten but actually woven well into the third act climax. Grace used that exact clause in order to save Faith, get close to Titus, kill him and take over the power in order to end the whole scheme and save herself. It felt quite refreshing to see a set up followed through rather than forgotten in favour of a needless subversion.
The thing that surprised me the most was how simply funny scenes in this film were, it wasn't a comedy, but it was quite hilarious in moments of downtime, like the aforementioned gag with Elijah Wood's character, and some classic tropes of the kid that was being on the side being the most apt shooter of his family, or the inept Indian guy continuously being a wuss.
Few Things I disliked
While the movie was quite enjoyable and while it has issues, the things that bothered me the most are with Titus and his sister Ursula Danforth. The first scene portrays Titus as this weak man who needs to man up, but starting from the very next scene he starts being portrayed as this evil douche guy and an inept guy, but Ursula keeps insisting that he has nothing good inside of him and some such which aside from him enjoying beating up Faith hasn't really come through at all. It is quite hard to paint one guy as a crazy psychopath when moments before and after we are seeing each and every single person here trying to hunt two girls for sport as a ritual for satan, it ends up falling quite flat, to the viewer and I assume to Grace as well, Titus doesn't seem any worse than the rest of the whack jobs trying to murder her. The first film was quite stronger on characters, especially portraying the mother in law as a sensible woman who simply accepted her faith, and the husband as someone who is battling with his family's cultism. The second film's side characters are somewhat tokenized and aside from the Danforths no one is really well explored, and their stories are hit or miss, i feel like a slightly longer time to flesh these characters out would've been quite useful, which we could've gotten through a diegetic mean of simply pushing back the start of the hunt a few hours later since the film needed to have a couple of skips in the timeframe anyways to fulfil the deadline of the game.
Conclusion
The Film isn't special, the film isn't even great, but maybe because of my lack of cinema enjoyment in the past months, or because i shared the experience of a new and wonderful cinema with my lovely girlfriend i thoroughly enjoyed it, so much so that i am quite compelled to give this film two separate scores. On quality I'd give it a solid 7 leaning onto an 8 so roughly a 77/100, meanwhile for my own personal enjoyment this is a solid 9 leaning onto a 10, a 96/100. I believe this duology is quite fun, quite memorable and I realise there probably won't be a third installment with Grace as the main character, which is sad cause i adored Samara Weaving's portrayal here, i am still quite happy that it exists, more films should be fun and enjoyable, I truly miss this from modern cinema.
Film Credits
Cast
Samara Weaving as Grace MacCaullay
Kathryn Newton as Faith MacCaullay
Elijah Wood as The Lawyer
Sarah Michelle Geller as Ursula Danforth
Shawn Hatosy as Titus Danforth
Director
Writers
Composer
Film and Score
runtime: 108 min
score: 77/100
enjoyment score: 96/100
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