- Content: “Let the Hunt Begin, Again”
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What You Need To Know:
The second installment in this makeshift horror franchise is a serviceable one, but the plot is naturally the first barrier towards any form of enjoyment. Troubling plot aside, READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME does have its comical, suspenseful moments, but it’s also bogged down by a repetitive story, silly unrealistic outcomes, and characters who aren’t really compelling. Also, the movie’s strong occult worldview has lots of gratuitous bloody violence, more than 100 obscenities and profanities, and some substance abuse. So, MOVIEGUIDE® finds READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME to be abhorrent and unacceptable. Media-wise moviegoers will want to avoid this horror show.
Content:
Very strong occult worldview where a satanic cult controls the entire world, this cult is depicted as evil but the worldview is very negative as it essentially states that the world is evil and run by evil people, there is also some paganism going on as well, and the cult worships money and power above everything else, including human life, but the two “heroines” have Christian-sounding names, Grace and Faith, and race refuses to sell her soul to the Devil;
At least 97 obscenities (including at least 75 “f” words) and seven strong and light profanities;
Countless examples of particularly bloody violence including stabbings, shootings, impalements, cutting into skin, glass embedded in skin, suffocation, slapping, and spontaneous combustion;
No sex;
Female nudity implied when a woman changes clothes, but nothing shown;
Alcohol is consumed throughout, drunkenness shown,
Multiple uses of cigarette usage, as well as snorting cocaine and doing other hard drugs;
Deception, blackmail, kidnapping, hunting someone for sport.
More Detail:
READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME starts off precisely where the first movie, released in 2019, ended. Grace sits in front of a burning mansion, smoking a cigar; the entirety of the Le Domas family no more. She is, at long last, rescued, and taken to a hospital, only to be suspected of arson/murder and interrogated by a detective. Turns out, torching a building and killing a bunch of rich folk tends to look suspicious without proper context.
Faith, Grace’s snide little sister, then enters the picture. Turns out, Grace never removed Faith as her emergency contact, even though the two had a falling out years ago. She teases about what happens, brags about her own life, and overall doesn’t believe Grace’s story one bit.
Elsewhere, the Danforth family has learned of the events from the first movie and realize what it means; control of the entire world is up for grabs. Two of the Danforth siblings, twins Shawn and Ursula, are especially determined to win for their father, Chester, who feels that this duty should have been the Danforth’s in the first place. They alert the other families involved
Grace and her sister, Faith, are captured and brought to the cult’s headquarters. There, Grace is told she must play hide and seek again, this time along with Faith. Whoever kills them gets the “high seat” of the cult and controls everything. However, if Grace and Faith survive until dawn, then they get to control the world.
Naturally, Grace refuses, but the cult has leverage, Faith. Faced with the choice of either playing the game or seeing her sister killed right then and there, Grace relents and agrees. Each of the cult members signs a mysterious book with their blood (naturally), and off we go.
This game has very specific rules. For starters, the members of the cult can only use weapons that existed when their ancestors signed their agreement with Satan. Second, they can’t kill each other, even by accident, or Satan/Le Bail will be very upset (and they will not survive). Third, only the eldest of each family gets to hunt. Then, if they die, the next in line must take their place. The Danforth twins, however, being born at the same time, apparently get to hunt together.
Grace and Faith are handcuffed to one another, dumped on a golf green, and soon begin the fight for their lives.
READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME is exactly as you might expect. It’s bloody, it’s violent, it is full of obscene language and occult blasphemy, but occasionally it evokes a laugh. Its main strengths are a nifty one-shot opening scene, the shock value of evil characters literally imploding in front of you. Also, the action keeps viewers on their toes, wondering who is and who isn’t going to be killed off, though the sibling protagonists, Grace and Faith, have plot armor for days. The characters are frankly not very enticing, much less sympathetic, but duo scream queens Samara Weaving and Kathryn Newton as Grace and Faith do their best with a limited script (and they certainly do a lot of screaming).
If there is a standout, it’s Elijah Wood of LORD OF THE RINGS fame, who plays a creepy “lawyer” of sorts for the cult. His character appears to be protected against the wrath of literal Satan, or Le Bail as he is called here, which is what the whole spontaneous combustion seems to be. READY OR NOT 2 does establish that the satanic cult is evil, but the cult members are also often played for laughs, and there isn’t a lick of nuance to their motivations.
Due to all those things and more, MOVIEGUIDE® finds READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME to be abhorrent and unacceptable. Media-wise moviegoers will want to avoid this horror show.
