"There Can Never Be Enough Blood!"

Ready or Not: Here's Another Trailer

Moments after surviving an all-out attack from the Le Domas family, Grace (Samara Weaving) discovers she’s reached the next level of the nightmarish game — and this time with her estranged sister Faith (Kathryn Newton) at her side.

Grace has one chance to survive, keep her sister alive, and claim the High Seat of the Council that controls the world.

Four rival families are hunting her for the throne, and whoever wins rules it all.

The welcome sequel nobody expected, Ready or Not: Here I Come continues the darkly humorous story of the excellent original movie from 2019. 

Ready or Not: Here I Come For A Sequel

Moments after surviving an all-out attack from the Le Domas family, Grace (Samara Weaving) discovers she’s reached the next level of the nightmarish game — and this time with her estranged sister Faith (Kathryn Newton) at her side.

Grace has one chance to survive, keep her sister alive, and claim the High Seat of the Council that controls the world. Four rival families are hunting her for the throne, and whoever wins rules it all.

I really liked the original, but was not expecting a sequel. That said, it's written and directed by the same people as the first, so I'm not going to turn my nose up at Ready or Not: Here I Come.

The trailer makes it look like more of the same gonzo violence and black humour - delivered by an all-star cast: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Néstor Carbonell, David Cronenberg, Elijah Wood, Kevin Durand, and, of course, Samara Weaving.

For those who need a reminder, here's a link to my review of 2019's Ready or Not.

Scream VI (2023)

It's a year after the last Ghostface rampage in Woodsboro and the "Core Four" - Sam (Melissa Barrera) and Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega) and the twins, Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad Meeks-Martin (Mason Gooding) - now find themselves in New York.

While the latter three are in college, at Blackmore University, Sam is doing menial jobs to cover the rent while she keeps an eye on her sister.

The film kicks off with an extended cold open, featuring cameos from Ready or Not's Samara Weaving and Tony Revolori, from the recent Spider-Man movies, again subverting the classic Scream opening with what is just the beginning of a trail of obfuscation and misdirection.

Ghostface has come to New York and states - on the phone - upfront that he's targeting Sam "for what she did" and anyone, such as her sister and friends, who gets in the way.

Sam is already persona non grata because of internet conspiracy theories that she in fact orchestrated the attacks in Woodsboro - because of her heritage - and then framed the actual killers.

This is all part of Scream VI's evolution of the central theme that it's now no longer 'enough' to 'simply' kill a person, you also have to kill their reputation as well.

As bodies start to inevitably mount up, Mindy declares to the group that they are not in a sequel, they're now part of a franchise and thus the rules have changed again, meaning everyone is fair game. 

As with the previous film, Scream VI presents us with a broad collection of potential murderers and victims, including legacy characters such as Hayden Panettiere's Kirby Reed, from Scream 4 (now an FBI agent) and fresh meat, including Sam's "secret" boyfriend, Danny Brackett (Josh Segarra, who you might recognise from playing the excellent Pug in She-Hulk, Attorney at Law, or Adrian Chase in Arrow).

Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) returns, of course, and even the ghost of Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) pops up a couple of times.

Thankfully, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett are back as directors, working with a script, again, by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick, which really helps ensure that Scream VI feels like an organic continuation of the previous instalment in the horrific murder-mystery franchise.

Whereas I posited the idea that 2022's Scream would have provided a satisfying conclusion to the overarching story, Scream VI now leaves the door well and truly open for a continuation of the saga of the Ghostface killings.

I would hope though that should another entry be made it would be under the auspices of the same team responsible for these last two Scream movies.

But now it's officially a franchise, who knows what direction the story will go in? 

And I must add the point that Marvel movies have broken me: I now scroll through the credits of every film I watch to see if there's a post-credit scene, and I have to say the one snuck on the end of Scream VI is perfect.

Ready Or Not (2019)

On her wedding night new bride Grace (Samara Weaving) discovers that her wealthy in-laws have some very strange traditions, including insisting that all new members of the family play a randomly chosen game before they be accepted in.

The Le Domas family have made their jealously-guarded fortune through the sale and manufacture of games since the Civil War, when family tradition claims their ancestor struck a deal with a supernaturally powerful entity by the name of Mr Le Bail.

But this deal comes with certain demands.

The wedding night game chosen for Grace is "hide-and-seek"... but with a brutal twist. As she goes off to hide in the family mansion, her new family are tooling up with guns, crossbows, battle axes etc with the idea of eventually ritually sacrificing her to their "mysterious benefactor".

Written by Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy, and directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, Ready or Not is a beautifully trimmed to the bone thriller, devoid of tedious build up to the inevitable carnage, instead pretty much hitting the ground running after a handful of snappy, establishing scenes.

We know next to nothing about Grace going into this, except that she was raised in foster homes, and we root for her simply because she is protagonist, trapped with an insane family of devil-worshippers.

The tight script runs the gamut from dark, dark humour to near-torture porn moments of graphic gore, but is always breathlessly propelling the story forward.

Don't look for depth or hidden meaning here, Ready or Not is a fun, simple, action-packed horror thriller, and a great way to spend an hour-and-a-half, as long as you are okay with Deadpool-levels of casual violence.

There's no real effort made to conceal the nature of the pact that Le Domas family believe is the secret to their success, with its Angel Heart style of chosen alias for the possible Big Bad of the piece.