Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, aka Radio Silence, are building up one of the most impressive winning streaks in film history, horror or otherwise. Ready or Not, Scream, Scream VI, Abigail, they’re all fantastic. Now you can add Ready or Not 2: Here I Come to the list because, like its predecessor, it’s a fast-paced, blood-soaked good time with another amazing performance by scream queen extraordinaire (and so much more) Samara Weaving. It may be more of the same, but when that same is such a sick chuckle of a rollercoaster ride, give us a second helping with sugar on top.
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It also does what a good sequel should do in terms of expanding upon the world established in its predecessor, shining a light on this warped cult of satanists who have very specific rules when it comes to serving their master. But where does Ready or Not 2 leave the audience? Let’s unpack the finale.
Spoilers follow for Ready or Not 2: Here I Come.
Where Does the Sequel End Up?
The emotional core of this sequel is the dynamic between Weaving’s Grace MacCaullay and her sister, Faith (Kathryn Newton). Years ago, Grace moved out of their foster family’s home, leaving her younger sister behind with a broken heart. Faith has never forgiven Grace for this and throughout the movie they’re consistently sparring.
But they need each other to survive and, of course, deep down in both of them there still remains a flicker of love for their sibling. Faith visits Grace in the hospital, where she finds herself handcuffed to the bed and being blamed for the deaths of the sinister Le Domas family. Grace tells her younger sister the outlandish story of what just happened and, though we’re not convinced Faith is convinced, she soon learns just how serious her big sister is being when an assassin shows up at the hospital.
The assassin doesn’t make it, but in a way neither do Grace and Faith, because they’re incapacitated by Elijah Wood’s “the Lawyer” and brought to the Danforth property, where a group of four families are now vying for a special ring and, by extension, control of the world.
Wan Chen Xing and her son, Wan Cheng Fu, are the first to go because of a rule where one of the families cannot kill a member of a competing family, even if it’s an accident. When Wan Chen Xing has her sword pushed into the throat of Ignacio El Caido (Néstor Carbonell, The Dark Knight), she’s done for and, by extension, so is her son.
However, before she dies, she tells Grace and Faith about a loophole in this particular sadistic game’s rules. If Grace survives the night, she gets the ring. If a member of one of the four families kills Grace, they get the ring. But, were Grace to marry her son, the game would be off. Wan Chen Xing would control the world, but Grace would continue to keep living.
The caveat of that is, of course, Grace would be selling her soul to the devil. You can’t join a devil cult without making that particular bargain. For this reason, Grace rejects the offer. However, Xing makes a good point when she informs the sisters of just how dangerous Titus Danforth (Shawn Hatosy) is.
Cut to act three a little down the line and, with Titus holding a gun to Faith’s head, it’s Grace’s turn to float this marriage proposition. Titus will get to control the world, because the game will be over, and both Grace and Faith will get to continue their lives. Grace will be connected to the devil cult, but at least her sister will be alive.
Good sister that she is, Faith asks Grace not to do this all the way up to the “I do” exchanges. But then, after marrying Titus, Grace stabs him repeatedly in the neck, with Faith then kicking him into a sacrifice pit that was just about to be the resting place of a sacrificed goat. Grace turns to the Lawyer and inquires who would be in charge of this cult should no one wear the ring. The Lawyer merely restates that the demonic entity Mr. Le Bail would be extremely displeased.
So, as head of the cult, Grace makes her first decree: She relinquishes her power. And, because their book of rules has never really accounted for someone actually giving up power, the consequences are vague. However, should anyone, member of the cult or not, put on the ring, they’re the new leader. Provided they do it within the next three minutes, that is, because dawn is nearly here. Grace tosses the ring into the sacrifice pit and all of the wedding’s satanist attendees leap in and start killing each other. In the midst of their chaos, the group’s frantic fight fest causes the ring to worm its way into the pile of animal bodies, resulting in no one putting it on come dawn. And, with that, every one of the cult’s members (save for the Lawyer) explodes in typical Ready or Not fashion.
Now that the violent night is over, the duo promise to be in one another’s lives from here on and we as the audience are relieved that Grace did not actually make any pact with the devil yet. Had the goat been slaughtered it would have been a different case. But the goat wasn’t slaughtered, because he’s currently walking beside the sisters off into the sunrise.
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Courtesy of Shueisha / Kadokawa / Square Enix / Shogakukan
