‘Ready or Not 2: Here I Come’ is Unnecessary, But That's Not Entirely Bad

Audiences have clamored for blonde-girl-horror team-ups for a good while, with the internet flooded with fan pitches for a Happy Death Day and Freaky crossover. Of course, slipping the star of one of those, Kathryn Newton, into the well-received Ready or Not made perfect box office sense. But, for a movie with such a strong and surprising finale, it’s a bit difficult to make it make entertainment sense.

Ready or Not ended with our hero, Grace (queen of the blood-curdling scream, Samara Weaving), sitting in her blood-soaked wedding dress, lighting up a cigarette. She’d survived the game-of-death initiation that came with her marriage into a new wealthy family, which resulted in them all exploding. In one of the better “Good For Her” final girl moments, we watched a bloodied and beaten survivor collapse without ever having to wonder what would happen next. Much is made of the “what happens to the Sally Hardestys or Anna Assaoui’s of the world” after the end credits roll, and Ready or Not 2: Here I Come is going to give us one answer. Grace might think her story is over, but the woman who can take a thousand hits is not home free. The failure and deaths of her in-laws are only the beginning, as her survival sets off an entirely new game of death where the most powerful families on earth must fight for the highest seat. So comes a gaggle of psycho-billionaires following their strange Satanic rulebook, which means being first to murder Grace and take their seat atop the proverbial throne. Grace doesn’t go down so easily, and neither does her emergency contact: her estranged sister, Faith (Newton), who gets quickly up to speed fending off exploding rich guys.

Directing duo, Radio Silence (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, the guys behind Abigail and some Scream sequels) have a fun bloody style, which makes most of their movies sing. Blood-soaked baddies fighting supernatural monsters with a tongue-in-cheek horror comedy aura might be their sweet spot, and that’s massively exemplified by Ready or Not. That remains present here, with newcomers like Sarah Michelle Gellar, Shawn Hatosy, and Néstor Carbonell hamming it up with their weapons-wielding, but this sequel struggles to live up to its predecessor after the biggest surprise has already been revealed. The exploding bodies finale of the first is so shocking and hilarious that it ratchets up the extreme horror-comedy (think Evil Dead II) right at the end. It follows an already solid cat-and-mouse horror, giving real supernatural consequences to a Satanic story thread, which is truly delectable scary movie fodder. It’s a challenge to live up to such a surprise and continue to balance the tone that was set by it. Grace asking cops for a cigarette or putting on her bloodied gown like a superhero costume feels like the movie struggling to find its tone after upending it a few frames earlier.

The new rules and new villains don’t mean much: Grace has to continue surviving one more night, subject to any loopholes the squad might come up with. It’s more of the same, and nothing is really gained by adding in relationship conversations about what went wrong between Grace and Faith. The scream queens are there to fight, and they’re mostly able to even when they’re weirdly cut so their co-stars can keep up. Set pieces are fun, and physical comedy is balanced with slasher gags, and that’s what the whole thing can be distilled down to: this movie probably isn’t necessary and doesn’t add much to its own story or canon, but it’s still fun to watch.

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come is a mouthful of a title and an eyeful of a movie. Where it never really lives up to the first, and struggles to even justify extending its story, it’s still a nice little romp that gives us a bouncy horror team up that’s got enough exploding billionaires to make it worth checking out.

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come hits theaters March 20, 2026