'Ready or not 2: Here I come': Samara Weaving is a scream

The scream queen, Samara Weaving, has an extraordinary scream: shrill, wild and ferocious, like a mongoose before it attacks. Her vibrato fury explodes only when she is fighting for her life. Otherwise, his newlywed (and recently widowed) Grace MacCaullay stays quiet when hunted, so he survives a murderous game of hide-and-seek in Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett's 2019 hit “Ready or Not,” only to be forced to play again in its echoey sequel “Ready or Not 2: Here I Come.”

In the tradition of “Halloween II,” this one begins at the same moment the last one ended. Grace, her white lace dress blackened by blood, smokes a cigarette in front of a burned-out mansion that belongs to her in-laws, the Le Domas, all dead. On this bride's wedding night, her groom allowed her relatives to sacrifice her to a demon, believing in the tradition that an evil spirit named Le Bail gave the family their amazing fortune. They failed; she triumphed.

The first film teased the idea that the family might be superstitious nutcases only to gleefully reveal in the climax that the devil is actually real and, when disappointed, makes his minions explode like a shaken bottle of Dom Pérignon. That joke is no longer a total surprise, but returning screenwriters Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy find that the suspense of who's going to show up, when and why, works just as well. “It's always surprising,” Grace says with dark humor. (Between this and “Sirāt”, human combustion is the morbid finish of the year).

This very dumb killer doesn't take himself very seriously, although I appreciated that once Grace exhales her tobacco, passes out, and comes to in a hospital bed, a detective (Grant Nickalls) handcuffs her to the railing and wants to arrest her on suspicion of arson and murder. One real-world rule is true: Someone has to take the blame when so many rich people die, even if they are their victim.

Now, four more posh families want to get on Le Bail's good side by competing to see who can kill Grace first. Did the writers throw in a dozen other playground games (killer dodgeball, killer cornhole, killer freeze tag) before sticking with the same hide-and-seek setup? The only change is that there's more of everything, including more prey when Faith (Kathryn Newton), Grace's estranged sister, joins the action, complaining that her sister's “negative” energy has once again turned her life upside down.

The host of the massacre is the powerful tycoon Chester Danforth (filmmaker David Cronenberg), a hotel and casino businessman, who entrusts the planning of the event to his adult children, twins Ursula and Titus (Sarah Michelle Gellar and Shawn Hatosy). The director of “The Fly” and “Videodrome” doesn't stay on the film long, but he bequeaths these capers a prestige they don't deserve. The family man of gut-wrenching, emotional body horror would never make a movie like this, although I think he'd be impressed when the visual effects team makes a human face dissolve like a bath bomb.

The rest of the ensemble represents titans of some vague industry from around the world: the Rajans of London, the El Caídos of Madrid, and the Wans of Shanghai, each of whom arrives with various family members as backup. A harassed guy, Wilkinson (Kevin Durand) from Atlantic City, also pursues Grace like a lonely renegade. There's not much comic relief to the idea of ​​a handful of selfish families ruling the world. Still, it's fun to see these soulless demons refer to Grace and Faith as “things” and also ignore each other's deaths. Generation after generation, this greedy bunch seems to grow lazier, intoning “Hail Satan” as casually as ordering their butler to bring them a martini.

Individual characters do not appear (except, of course, when they literally do). The movie would be a little more interesting if we knew something about each family's backstory. The only historical intrigue comes when Le Bail's lawyer (Elijah Wood) insists that the rules state that each clan must attack Grace and Faith using weapons from the time their ancestors made their satanic pact. It's never mentioned again, but I spun uneasy fictions watching the Danforths stab the girls with railroad spikes while Olivia Cheng's hipper Chinese heiress chased them with a drone.

There's still a lot of potshots and there's not much hook to hang on to, nor any kind of story in this deadly, rushed turn of “Succession.” I note that the demon is a more honest and fair negotiator than his vassals, who occasionally cheat and are punished in exactly the way you expect to see.

Hatosy's Titus is the disappointing washed-up son of the Danforths, and the actor keeps his face in a delightfully silly pout. But Titus's fever to prove that he is his own man makes him unpredictable and dangerous, and makes him the only villain with more layers than one. Still, my favorite of the bunch is Maia Jae's Fallen Francesca, the jilted ex-lover of Grace's late husband, who enters the film like a hellcat, fighting for both her own ego and Le Bail's tempting offer of world domination. His careless confrontation with Grace is the climax of the action.

None of this is scary. The directors, who have also dabbled in the “Scream” franchise, prefer to laugh rather than be left speechless. His favorite move is a chuckle, like when they show a gruesome image on the screen that's so disgusting you can't help but laugh.

However, the mischievous tone prevents Grace from having much of a personality, other than a rebel. screw this. Every time a scene gives him a chance to catch his breath, he wastes it on a useless joke about his desperate search for a cigarette.

At least Weaving has his screamer and Newton has his impressive ability to take punishment. While new to this particular series, Newton is as skilled a cartographer of the comedy-horror terrain as the star of “Freaky,” “Lisa Frankenstein” and the directors’ previous film, “Abigail.” Her eccentric, squirrel-like swagger allows her to read any script relatively unscathed, including this one. And he has one of the best laugh lines in the movie when he looks at the bad guys and tries to placate them by saying, “You guys seem like good people.”

The sisters' mutual antagonism has some clever moments, such as when they argue over who had the top job at a working-class restaurant, Grace waiting tables or Faith as a hostess. But the few times they're forced to honestly express their hurt feelings are as forced as the moment when Grace re-zips her bloody wedding dress before she's washed it.

However, kudos to the costume team for a different outfit that Grace wears in the second half of the film that is absolutely stunning gothic couture with black fishnet and a tiara. It matches majestically with Weaving's defiant chin and bright eyes. Despite the thin and routine stretches of this sequel, it once again closes strong with some images that will stay in your head for at least a week or two. No spoilers, but it's no coincidence that “Here I Come” eventually becomes more interesting once it tires of the hide-and-seek. Finding a new plot twist is the only way to achieve a tie.