SXSW 2026 | Movie Review: Samara Weaving and Katheryn Newton Pummel The Rich and Squash Their Beef In "Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come"

7/12 ForReel Score | 3.5/5 Stars

The first Ready or Not was not constructed for a sequel. When Grace (Samara Weaving) sat on the steps of the burning Le Domas mansion drenched in their blood, I had always imagined that she eventually made it to a hot shower and a warm bed. Not so. Radio Silence’s breakout debut cemented Weaving as a generational scream queen and has become beloved by horror fans. The directing duo ventured out to make a couple of Screams but that endeavor crashed and burned. Samara has done a string of indies and b-tier studio movies but has never quite found a role that lets her cut loose in the same way. Time for everybody to come back to what worked and refresh in this long awaited sequel.

We pick up immediately after the ending of the first film. Grace is taken to the hospital and her estranged sister Faith (Kathryn Newton) is called to retrieve her. The two haven’t spoken for almost a decade and immediately launch into bickering. Their time to fight is short lived. The hospital is attacked and the sisters are swiftly drugged and captured. They’re taken to a new compound and surrounded by several different families who have been gradually introduced to us during the film’s laboriously slow first act. At the helm of it all is The Lawyer (Elijah Wood) who explains in great detail that there is a power vacuum in the underworld of the disgustingly wealthy. With the La Domas family gone, the most powerful seat on the council is up for grabs, and whoever manages to kill Grace during a second game of hide and seek will be victorious. This sets us in motion. Carnage and long overdue family healing ensure. 

The most inspired aspect of Here I Come 2 is the pairing of Weaving and Newton (Lisa Frankenstein, Freaky). They do resemble one another but each brings a distinct edge. Weaving is more serious. She’s at her wits end having to deal with playing hide and seek again and hearing about how she wasn’t a good enough sister only makes her more angry. Newton is a bit more snarky and snide, always finding the exact moment to twist the knife and agitate Grace. Their conflict feels a little contrived. Very standard “you left me when I needed you” business that feels like it should be a little easier to move past given the circumstances. At times it seems like they’ve put it aside, only for the spitefulness to tediously pop out again during the most inappropriate moments. Regardless, Weaving and Newton are clearly having a blast riffing off of one another and that sense of fun breaks through even the weaker moments. 

We definitely should’ve been playing a different game besides hide and seek this time around. The only truly compelling thing about the hunt itself is the new hunters. Most notably, we have Sarah Michelle Gellar & Shawn Hatosy as a sadistic brother/sister pair who murder their father (David Cronenberg, thankless cameo) in their first scene so that they can take this shot at power. It is a pleasure to watch Gellar chew on a more venomous role while still engaging in some Buffy-isms during her throwdowns with Grace. Hatosy is shockingly menacing as a man who is willing to harm just about anyone purely to demonstrate power. I would not have expected that from Dr. Abbott! The rest of the hunters are mostly disposable kill fodder, which makes it all the more inexplicable that Radio Silence chose to spend so much time introducing them. 

Once everything is moving, the set pieces are perfectly edible reheated leftovers from Ready or Not. They’re appropriately gory and we get to watch Grace go ham with her animalistic rage. There’s only one true standout, a sequence where Grace and her pursuer have a blind clumsy fistfight after spraying each other with pepper spray. It’s the only moment that has the same visceral sense of physical pain that Grace feels all throughout the original Ready Or Not. Sure, she gets hurt here, but she’s mostly capable and in command when it comes to taking out her enemies. 

Those several years making Scream sequels have clearly rubbed off on Radio Silence. Ready or Not 2: Here I Come is a perfectly satisfying if entirely unremarkable redux of the original with just barely enough new wrinkles to feel worthwhile. It does feel like a trick that will only work once. The ending of this does not promise more installments to come and frankly any continuation feels unimaginable considering where we end up. That’s exactly what I thought after the first one, though. You never know. If this pops off at the box office, I’m sure we’ll be contriving some way to play an even bigger game of hide and seek. I’ll be seated as long as Samara’s there.