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Now Playing: ‘Ready or Not 2’ and ‘They Will Kill You’: Tell the same story with different results
By: Gordon Briggs
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If you’re an avid movie watcher, it happens from time to time: you go to the theater to watch two different movies by different filmmakers, yet it feels like you’re watching the same movie twice.
In this case, the two movies are Ready or Not 2 and They Will Kill You.
Both movies are about the occult, both are about sibling relationships, both take place over one night, and both feature resilient women hunted by wealthy elites.
However, one film is more successful than the other.
Picking up right where the original left off, Grace discovers she’s reached the next level of the nightmarish game and is forced (handcuffed to her estranged sister) to try to survive another hunt by the wealthy, devil-worshipping one percent.
While the film does have a dark sense of humor and plenty of blood to please gorehounds, it feels like it’s simply trying to repeat the original. That choice makes sense from a marketing perspective , but the element of surprise that made the original so appealing is gone here.
Specifically, we know Grace is capable of defeating her wealthy opponents because we’ve literally seen her do it the night before. I was a fan of the original because it kept its occult elements secret until its last half, and its humorous approach to the material was refreshing for the time.
Unfortunately, we know what’s coming and what the outcome will be, and it’s frustrating that the filmmakers pretend like we don’t.
Here, Asia (an always engaging Zazie Beetz) is a newly hired housekeeper at a luxurious New York City high-rise where residents have vanished for decades. When the high-rise’s mysterious residents, cloaked in black robes, try to murder Asia, they are in for a surprise when their prey turns out to be a gun-toting, machete-wielding butt-kicker herself, who will spend the night fighting for her life against the hotel’s devil-worshiping residents.
The violence is “capital B” bloody, and nobody with a queasy stomach should watch this one.
As for visuals, the action is fast-paced and well-choreographed. While gory horror films could easily come across as repulsive or gratuitous to some, there’s a fluidity and crispness to the fight scenes in this movie.
As Asia slices bad guys’ heads and limbs off, I was reminded of films like Kill Bill, which had a humorous, almost splatstick style that felt fun rather than depressing.
However, the film largely works because Zazie Beetz feels like a real person. She isn’t just trying to survive the night; she is trying to reunite and rescue her sibling, which makes her character much more than just another hollow Hollywood badass.
Unlike Ready or Not 2, They Will Kill You is made by people who know their audience has seen horror films before and adapts its story accordingly.
Ready or Not 2 ★ ★1/2
They Will Kill You ★ ★ ★