Ready or Not 2: Here I Come | SXSW 2026 Film Review

Horror sequels are tricky beasts. Sometimes they try to recreate lightning in a bottle and end up feeling like a pale imitation. Other times they swing so wildly in a new direction that fans wonder if the filmmakers even liked the first movie. Thankfully, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come lands squarely in the sweet spot. The directing duo of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett – collectively known as Radio Silence – return to expand the gleefully twisted world they started with Ready or Not, and the result is bigger, bloodier, and wilder.

Ready or Not 2 hits the ground running (and if you have not seen the first film, you will need a refresher to keep up) as Grace awakes in a hospital handcuffed to a bed, accused of murdering an entire family as she recovers from her wounds. Her only emergency contact is her estranged sister, Faith (Kathryn Newton). You might recall, in the first film, Grace stated she had no family, so we’re tapdancing around a disjointed plot point here as it would be surprising if the all-powerful Le Domas family failed to check the emergency contact info. Regardless, Faith and Grace are forced to reconnect fast, as a whole other evil is coming for them.

Now, Grace and Faith must complete another horrendous task: survive until dawn against the few families in the world who control every aspect of mankind. If they win, Grace will take the High Seat on the Council overseen by Mr. Le Bail, presumed to be the Devil. If any of the other families take them out, they earn that seat. It’s a power play with family representatives including Shawn Hatosy, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nestor Carbonell, and Olivia Cheng, among others. There is also a cheeky cameo from David Cronenberg as Chester Danforth, the patriarch of the Danforth twins (Hatosy and Gellar).

At the center of it all once again is Samara Weaving as Grace, the blood-soaked bride who survived the night from hell in the first film. But this sequel wisely does not attempt to pretend that kind of trauma just disappears with the sunrise. Grace is dealing with severe PTSD throughout the film. She is still haunted by what happened and unsure if she has the strength to face another nightmare. Watching Weaving navigate that emotional terrain gives the film a surprising grounding. She still has the feral survival instinct we loved before, but now there’s hesitation, vulnerability, and the slow rebuilding of confidence as events spiral out of control once again. Weaving truly amplifies her performance here, and her ferocity – when she arrives at it – is unmatched in modern horror.

Enter the film’s secret weapon: Kathryn Newton as Grace’s estranged sister Faith. If the first movie was Grace against a homicidal family, this one turns into a sister-powered survival story, and the chemistry between Weaving and Newton is electric. Their dynamic becomes the beating heart of the movie. Newton brings a sharp comedic edge that balances the film’s chaos perfectly. She is not just comic relief, though. Faith proves herself capable, clever, and every bit as scrappy as Grace when things inevitably go sideways. And things go very, very sideways.

Where the first film kept the carnage mostly inside a single mansion and family, this sequel blows the doors wide open. Radio Silence scales the story up into a larger conspiracy involving powerful elites battling for control behind the scenes. It sounds ridiculous on paper, but honestly, in 2026 it doesn’t exactly feel that far-fetched. The film leans into that absurdity with a wicked grin, turning the story into a globe-spanning power struggle that somehow still feels personal thanks to Grace and Faith.

Helping fuel the bloodshed is a stacked roster of villains, though only a few stand out. Sarah Michelle Gellar brings surprising depth to her role as Ursula Danforth, giving what could have been a standard antagonist a layered, human complexity that makes her motivations fascinating to watch. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Shawn Hatosy as Titus Danforth, who goes far darker than expected, delivering a performance that is genuinely unsettling and unnerving as his rage against Grace continues to fester.

Then there’s the deliciously strange appearance by Elijah Wood as a devilish lawyer who feels like he wandered in from an entirely different nightmare. The character is so intriguing you’ll spend half the movie wondering about his backstory, and wishing for a spinoff explaining how he became this morally bankrupt legal shark for Beelzebub. When it was all over, Wood’s character was the most fascinating of the bunch.

The only true complaint I have, aside from the escalating ridiculousness of this John Wick-esque global power struggle, is with the constant winking to “we’re doing this again”. It’s a Radio Silence trope at this point – see Scream 5 and 6 – where the characters are frequently acknowledging they know we have been down this road before. In this film, while they do this with Grace’s character multiple times, at least there is a fresh layer of complexity coming from Grace as to how and when it is acknowledged. That said, if there is a Ready or Not 3 (which I hope there is), here is to hoping we only nod to the repetitiveness of events once and move on from it.

Of course, none of this would matter if the movie forgot what made the original so entertaining. Fortunately, it doesn’t. Ready or Not 2: Here I Come doubles down on the outrageous violence, delivering twice the blood and gleefully gratuitous mayhem. Bodies fly, traps snap, and the film keeps its tongue planted firmly in cheek the entire time. Bonus points for creating the most bombastic, brutal fight sequences you will ever see set to Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart.

The end result is a horror sequel that understands exactly why audiences fell in love with the original. It’s bigger, louder, nastier, and packed with memorable performances (Weaving and Newton are a natural duo that deserve another wedding together), all while keeping the chaotic spirit intact. This is how you do a horror sequel.