A young woman and her sister get dragged into a death match with a wealthy council of devil-worshipping families. Ready or Not 2 is staged as a fast-paced comedy, and the lead, Samara Weaving, is strong in her role. However, the humor is all based on gushing gouts of gore, ruthlessly battered women, spewed profanity and satanic worship.
As Grace sat on the front steps of her former in-laws’ house—covered head-to-toe in bloody muck and puffing deeply on a cigarette—she was mentally numb. And rightfully so. I mean she had just spent the night running through this massive manor in terror.
It turned out her new husband and his family were all devil worshipers, and she was the evening’s designated sacrifice. And when the fam failed their mission—and Grace lived through till morning—the whole Le Domas clan exploded in geysers of gore as some sort of supernatural punishment.
It was a humdinger of a wedding night.
What Grace didn’t know, however, was that her hacking, slashing and blood-spewing experience was just a warmup. And since she miraculously came out of the event in one piece, now she’ll have to face the entire High Council.
You see there’s a whole gaggle of wealthy Satan-worshipping families who made deals with a certain Mr. Le Bail at various points throughout the past few centuries. There’s the Danforths in America, the El Caidos in Spain, the Wan family in Shanghai and the Rajans from London. They make up the remaining members of a satanic cult of the rich and elite who quite literally control everything.
So, when faced with the very unlikely situation of an intended sacrifice going wrong, they’re all given the privilege of gathering together and competing for control of the high seat: the post of ultimate power.
Grace caused all of that. Oh, and she has the chance of gaining that utmost seat herself. Of course, avoiding four families full of raving megalomaniacs wielding a variety of exceedingly deadly weapons might be a tad tougher than the last challenge she faced.
On the positive side, Grace won’t have to run, scream and bleed all on her own. The Council has pulled in her estranged sister, Faith, to help.
Hey, family is important in this devilish game.
As you might expect, Faith isn’t overly happy about getting pulled into a satanic death game. She and Grace have been estranged over the last seven years or so, after Grace left Faith with a foster family. “Biologically speaking, we’re sisters, but we’re not family,” Faith declares.
However, the two young women work out their past conflicts and heal their fractured relationship. They stand by and fight diligently for one another, each putting her life on the line for her sister. The sisters openly voice their love for one another and promise to stay by each other’s side.
Throughout the film, the high council family members (and a presiding lawyer) call out “Hail Satan” repeatedly. It’s made clear that each member made a pact with Mr. Le Bail and that he and Satan are one in the same.
Later in the film, Grace gets pulled into the “Black Temple” to participate in a satanic ceremony populated by men and women praising Mr. Le Bail as an all-powerful god, repeating Latin chants and dedicating themselves to the work of the devil. Grace is offered a chance to, in essence, sell her soul, but she refuses.
The council family members all slash open their own palms to sign documents with their blood. One ceremony in the temple requires the mingling of two people’s blood in a ceremonial bowl, and it’s performed with a chant of, “by the power of Satan.” A spirit-like individual briefly appears, seated on the temple’s throne.
A goat also gets pulled into the dark ceremony to be used as an animal sacrifice. Some of the occultic-feeling scenes are underscored by a version of “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” scored in a minor key. In one instance, that musical scene features pictures of demons and devils. Someone jokes about Grace and Faith coming from an Irish-Catholic family.
Grace and Faith wear ripped and torn clothing throughout the film, though their exposed skin is generally covered in a layer of blood and chunks of other people’s flesh and internal organs. In one scene, however, Grace strips off her hospital gown and puts on other clothes. (We see her bare back from the waist up.) Some female council members wear low-cut clothing. One of the male council members playfully slaps another male member in the crotch.
[This section contains spoilers.]
The running concept of this film is that any person who makes a pact with Mr. Le Bail/Satan is bound to follow his book of rules. And if they violate any of those rules, they’re instantly and visibly killed in gruesome ways—generally, erupting in an explosion of flesh, entrails and gore. So we see that happen repeatedly. In fact, one particular scene results in some twenty people all blowing up at the same time and causing a massive geyser of blood and muck. (Grace and Faith are regularly spattered by these massive hemorrhages.)
In addition to those sporadic explosions of bodily fluids, other realistic flesh-rending is ongoing. Many different people get stabbed by knives and swords through their throats and upper bodies (sometimes in a flurry of repeated stabs). People get shot with shotgun blasts and bullets. A father gets smothered to death by his own children. A woman gets fiercely choked, and her neck is then snapped. Men get kicked aggressively in the crotch.
A man accidentally shoots a propane tank, causing a massive explosion. Another individual gets thrown into an industrial-strength washing machine, and he comes out with a torn face and body, his flesh melting from the extreme heat. Various people get punched in the face and battered with large objects, ranging from chairs and decorative ornaments to an electric keyboard. Scores of people leap into a pit filled with bones and gore to fight over a special object. They batter, choke and stab one another, some get impaled on spikes or protruding bones.
Grace and Faith get bound and gagged. Council members regularly beat them and thrown them around. (In fact, Faith gets ruthlessly beaten in a long sequence by a large man. She’s slammed repeatedly to the floor and kicked in the stomach, chest and head. She’s then hauled to her feet, her face gashed and totally covered with her own blood.) Someone drives a large spike through a woman’s upper chest. An explosion riddles Grace’s arm with small, sharp shards of metal. She screams in pain as she and Faith pull the shrapnel out and douse her arm with alcohol.
There are more than 75 f-words and 20 s-words in the dialogue, along with multiple uses each of the words “a–hole,” “b–ch,” “tw-t,” “whore,” “puta” and “d–k.”
God’s and Jesus’ names are misused a total of nine times (God being combined with either “d–n” or the f-word in five of those instances). Someone uses an offensive hand gesture.
Marijuana smoke billows out of a car. Grace and Faith get injected in the neck with drugs that render them unconscious. We see council members drinking glasses of booze and flutes of champagne. Grace and Faith drink shots of vodka to dull their painful injuries. Grace also downs pain pills with a glass of wine after pulling a sharp object out of her shoulder.
Grace lights up a cigarette whenever she can, once or twice checking to see if a dead enemy has a pack of cigarettes on them. In fact, it becomes a running joke that she’ll ask for a cigarette whenever anyone asks if she has any questions. Two different men smoke cigars.
The council lawyer reads from a book of rules set forth by Mr. Le Bail/Satan. And he presides over council ceremonies as something of a high priest.
Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett successfully transitioned in the early 2010s from viral YouTube shorts to high-grossing studio horror films. And whatever else they may pride themselves on, they definitely know how to structure and pace a horror comedy.
Along with the on-screen dynamism of star Samara Weaving (who plays Grace), this moviemaking team keeps Ready or Not 2: Here I Come clipping along at a never-a-dull-moment gallop. And they pack their latest romp with a flood of exploding blood bags, realistically ripped flesh and demon-worship.
Of course, those elements are the major problems with this sequel as well. En masse gore and extreme profanity spews everywhere in the film. Characters worship and repeatedly praise Satan as their god. And frail women are excessively and mercilessly beaten and bloodied. All for the sake of, uh, “humor.”
Many will be too busy wincing to get the joke.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
