The first Ready or Not made a bride hide for her life. Six years on, the follow-up proves surviving isn't the end: It’s just the opening round.
Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett return to the helm of the horror romp, with Samara Weaving reprising Grace, the newlywed who survived her murderous in-laws. Abigail star Kathryn Newton dives into the maelstrom as her estranged sister.
The Buffy reboot may be dead, but Sarah Michelle Gellar’s slayer edge is very much alive – she’s a cold, calculating adversary here, while Elijah Wood gleefully trades Middle-earth for mayhem as the master of chaos.
The satire is sharper this time, taking a chainsaw to generational wealth where the original only nudged it.
A delightfully bonkers scene that begins with a tidy rules explanation quickly descends into an unhinged spectacle, with pandemonium spilling into every corner.
Ready or Not 2 star Elijah Wood chats to RTÉ Entertainment:
Speaking to RTÉ Entertainment, Elijah Wood praised the patient craftsmanship behind the film, commending the co-creators for resisting the urge to rush a sequel.
"I've been following Matt [Bettinelli-Olpin] and Tyler [Gillett] of Radio Silence for years, and I’ve always admired what they were doing in the genre space," he said. "We got to know each other a bit, and through my production company, SpectreVision, we’d been waiting for the right project to collaborate on. Then they sent me the script for this – and it was such a surprise."
What made it even sweeter? "It was a sequel some six years down the line, which is wonderful in the sense that they didn’t just immediately jump on trying to make a sequel," he added. "They really waited for there to be a story or an idea that was befitting the original concept, and the script really delivered."
Ready or Not 2 isn’t without its flaws. At times, escalation substitutes for depth, and certain threads feel included more for the exploding body count than to raise the stakes.
Yet, it largely delivers what it promises – it’s louder, wilder, and bloody good fun.
