Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (2026)

Score: 3.5 / 5

Opening immediately after the end of the first film, the film centers on Grace as her horrors continue. In a nice long take focused on Samara Weaving's face as she collapses and is carried into an ambulance, Grace blacks out but is resuscitated, each jolt reminding us of key flashbacks to the traumatic night she's just endured. The Le Domas family is no more -- well, apart from her now bearing their surname, legally -- and in case you missed the first one and for some reason started with the sequel, we're given some nice exposition early on. Grace's estranged sister Faith (yes, there's a jab about Catholic names) is her emergency contact and arrives as Grace is handcuffed to her bed, under suspicion of unspeakable things to the Le Domas family and estate.

But, as they do in all things, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and writer Guy Busick handle the our return to this world with wit and style. Even exposition dumps are riddled with humor and nihilism, earned by what they know fans loved about the first film. Swiftly, a new plan is hatched as the young women are attacked in the hospital and spirited away. We're shown a new assemblage of wealthy assholes, representatives of various families associated with the diabolic Mr. Le Bail (apparently literally the Devil), gathering at a remote estate; these new characters have been summoned to partake in a new "game" of sorts: a battle to vie for the High Seat of "the Council," a group of elites who have made Faustian deals and who now secretly control the world. One (played by David Cronenberg himself) is introduced to us as watching news footage of a war and calling someone privately to have a ceasefire, which is immediately enacted on screen. 

Unfortunately, this means that it's double or nothing. The Council families will each send a representative at a time to kill the young women, and they'll be replaced by their own reserves. It's shockingly bleak for our heroines, one of whom is still quite injured from the previous day's exploits, the other of whom has to suddenly believe all this capitalistic, satanic insanity and simultaneously try to survive it. One imagines with agony the kind of physical stress these women underwent to make this film; they capably pull off what was surely a grueling shoot of goopy, sticky, slimy special effects and tons of fight choreography, to say nothing of all the running they do. 

Their deadly game board this time is a sizable, rural estate of many acres. What, in the first film, was a sort of flip on the Gothic whodunnit, is here a Grand Guignol vision of The Most Dangerous Game or The Hunt from a few years ago. Things seem even less fair this time around, even lorded over as they are by a delightfully perky Elijah Wood as a sort of cabal secretary or consigliere to these evil families. Their representatives are bizarre and hilarious as they arm themselves and prepare for the chase, especially Kevin Durand doing what he does and Nestor Carbonell with a caricatured Spanish accent through what seem to be exaggeratedly false teeth. 

While the filmmakers are never less than inventive, engrossing, and wildly entertaining, they do expand the scope of what's happening in a big way. That's normal for sequels, of course, and in a lot of ways this literally doubles the good stuff from before. But if you, like me, liked the restrictions in the first film with its limited cast and setting, you might find yourself both overwhelmed and numb to the much-expanded proceedings. There are too many characters for any to have much presence beyond an initial impression or superlative characteristic. Each has a spectacular death as well, which begin to feel camp as things get messy. Spontaneous bloody combustions happen fairly frequently this time around. The expanded mythology, too, is well-designed and sure to lead to yet more installments, but the lack of mystery does make things less intellectually stimulating. We already know Mr. Le Bail is not to be trifled with and that all the conspiracy is true, and so apparently does everyone else; whereas the Le Domases were torn on their belief, everyone in this film knows what's at stake.

Yet the film takes a few steps that are so intense and upsetting that I hesitate labeling it camp or even macabre satire. First, there's the rather shocking treatment of violence against women. Obviously that was a central theme in the first film -- the iconic bloody wedding dress is evidence enough -- but here, for the first time, I got uncomfortable to the point of squirming distraction as the two leading women were so viciously tortured on screen. There's one scene in particular when Faith (a wonderful Kathryn Newton, by the by) is beaten so brutally I had to avert my eyes, something I almost never do, because the camera and edit just lingers on it so long. The other is the wicked twin pair of Shawn Hatosy and Sarah Michelle Gellar, who are lovably nasty and almost sympathetic until a crucial climactic moment when Hatosy reveals that his evil is real. Without spoilers, suffice to say that his Patrick Bateman-like quirks are indeed fueled by hellish motivation, and when he shows his true face, he's quite scary.

While I'm still angry they haven't yet followed up with more Scream, I guess I can be happy that they chose to continue work on this material over something like Abigail. 

Abigail (2024)

Score: 3.5 / 5

I don't often get on this soapbox but today is the day. Marketing rarely matters to me personally, and I don't usually avoid spoilers because regardless of what "happens" in a film, in terms of plot, I'd rather focus on other elements. But for a film whose primary purpose seems to be its unique mashup of genres, a film that hinges on its own conceptual novelty, to broadcast its main point of interest -- and its only twist -- without room for doubt or speculation in its trailers, is a problem.

Everyone knows it by now, so it's no spoiler: Abigail features its titular character as its antagonist, a little girl whose desire to be a ballerina far exceeds her desire for blood. She's a vampire. This high-concept horror aspect of the film doesn't materialize until about halfway through, about the time when we need something to pick up the energy and raise the stakes. For the first half, though, the film is simply a home invasion thriller, a crime heist in which a needlessly large group of criminals kidnap Abigail, the daughter of a powerful underworld figure in NYC and hold her in an upstate mansion. Their goal is to hold her for 24 hours and they'll each get a massive payout.

Note: the money is laughably excessive and a general disregard for the specifics of any plot details makes even the start of this film difficult to swallow. You've got to give your audience a little more than "big money, easy target, some crime" to make your story compelling. And delightful as his presence is, it takes more than a spooky Giancarlo Esposito setting the scene to make for a chilling premise. It's as though the writers were so eager to get to the climactic encounter between vampire ballerina child and adult thugs that they didn't really care to set it up properly.

Thankfully, the cast are likable and interesting enough to help carry us over any initial misgivings. Not that any of them are written with depth or intrigue, mind. But Dan Stevens, Kevin Durand, Kathryn Newton, Will Catlett, and the late Angus Cloud are all compelling in their own ways, especially Stevens here, whose deliciously wicked streak of unpredictability carries most of the group scenes. Melissa Barrera is unfortunately slighted by the screenplay, which treats her character as a sort of anti-heroine, so thinly drawn she couldn't stand up to any analysis and so blandly delivered that I repeatedly forgot it was the otherwise skilled actress. To be fair, it's a thankless role, and I don't think she played it badly; there's just so little for her to work with or believably imbue into the role. 

Alisha Weir plays the title role with a confidence and charm that, frankly, shocked me. Reportedly doing most of her own stunts, she embodies a physical force of evil like I haven't seen in a film in years. People will surely compare this film to M3GAN, but the dancing and violent little girl are shallow comparison points; that film was a mess, but this one consistently knows what it's doing and why. By the time she's given the full monster treatment -- with some excellent makeup and special effects -- the film tips over the edge into a gorefest that makes its latter half infinitely more entertaining. Well-choreographed action scenes see Abigail chasing her prey through Gothic halls, and though frenetic editing makes for some truly hard-to-watch sequences (the editor should be slapped for repeatedly cutting right at the most interesting part or before the actor actually enters the frame of the shot where action is supposed to be occurring), at least it is a fun time to watch.

It just sucks that there is no further interest in the premise. Can we get mad at a film for giving us exactly what it promises us? Perhaps not, but when the trailer is essentially the entire story, what's the point of a 90-minute screening when a 90-second trailer will suffice? When the marketing spoils something as crucial as "hey, the girl you're about to kidnap is actually a vampire that will suck you dry one by one," you naturally expect there to be a further twist in the narrative, a point to be made, even a surprise character or additional plot to follow. Think about Don't Breathe, which has a somewhat similar opening premise. Hell, think about previous films from co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. They seem to have the most fun once Abigail is found out and the characters run amok through the mansion (which has more character than any of the characters) playing a vampiric version of Clue. Actually, there isn't any real mystery here, despite the film's determination to reference Agatha Christie multiple times. The writers don't even seem to care much about the characters they do have, referring to them not with their real names but with Rat Pack-inspired codenames.

It's hard to critique a film in which there was ultimately so little left to explore, because it felt like a rewatch despite it being a first viewing. It's hard to feel excitement or attachment for talented actors playing unbearably shallow characters, especially when you know they're just vampire fodder. It's hard to feel the intelligence of these filmmakers when you see every beat coming well in advance and it's all slowed down by tedious dialogue that should have been workshopped out. I don't understand why the marketing didn't focus on the first half of the film alone so that the delightful reveal of sweet Abigail with her monstrous teeth could come earlier and with more impact. I quite thoroughly enjoyed the film, especially as the B-movie it really is, but I do wish it had scrapped its own marketing budget and paid its writers better. For a horror-comedy, it's never very scary and prompts few laughs (I only really laughed each time a vampire dies, because they explode with a violence that took me completely by surprise), but it gets away with it by sheer bravura in its own conceit.

P.S.: I ran across an interview with the filmmakers that said Universal had planned for this project to be a remake of Dracula's Daughter (1936), and while that title would certainly not have worked for this film, it does add points of interest to note. That film, notoriously heavy with its lesbian subtext, has nothing in common with this film, and while a young vampiric ballerina will surely make for a popular Halloween costume this year, I'd have been much more interested in this film being willing to explore that dynamic more. Perhaps, like the many werewolf movies about young men growing into their monstrous selves, this could have been a coming-of-age story about Dracula's daughter, even with her ballet, learning to become herself. What we get instead is so utterly divergent from the source material that any latent sexuality, gender nonconformity, or even intergenerational connectivity is lost, sacrificed for spectacle and bleak humor.

P.P.S.: Another way to approach this that I'd have preferred: start the film with Stevens or Barrera getting bitten and infected by Abigail or her father. Let them choose to undergo the vampire transformation in order to become their enemy and try to hunt them down, kind of like Blade. If Barrera, we could reinforce some more of the lesbian content in the source material, and it would allow us to skip over the needlessly detailed exposition and excessive setup.

Scream VI (2023)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Where do you go after Scream 5, the surprising and wonderful reboot of the series last year that functions as commentary -- and terrifying addition to the canon -- on "requels" or legacy sequels? Culturally and artistically, we haven't really bypassed that stage of horror evolution. This is the question posed for Scream VI, the latest in the series, which might also be the most viscerally scary of the series. It seems that, in accordance with Halloween Kills -- not to mention the divisive Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Star Wars: The Last Jedi -- this sequel to a requel just hammers home what the fans want. Less exposition, more action, and some smart fan service. It also cleverly includes several nods to Scream 2, much like the previous installment did with Scream (1996). 

It's Halloween again, one year after the most recent Woodsboro murders, and the young survivors have relocated to New York City, attending Blackmore University. While it might be a bit weird that the so-called "core four" crossed the country to attend school together, it's also kind of sweet and showcases their seemingly effortless friendship, along with perhaps some co-dependency. Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) and her sister Tara (Jenna Ortega) live together, while Chad and Mindy Meeks-Martin are nearby (Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown, respectively). The attractive cast is complemented out by the Carpenters' roommate Quinn (Liana Liberato of The Beach House, Novitiate, Haunt, and Trespass), Chad's roommate Ethan (Jack Champion of Avatar: The Way of Water), and Mindy's girlfriend Anika (Devyn Nekoda). These kids have been trying to move on with their lives, but Sam has been ostracized since a viral online post suggested she was the mastermind behind the Woodsboro massacre. Tara, meanwhile, is trying to live life to the fullest by being a bit reckless.

You can't talk about a Scream movie without attending to its opening sequence, and this one was perfect. Okay, they all are, but this one was somewhat unique because the kills were all real (rather than in the world of the Stab movies), involved total strangers to us, and referenced -- at least to my mind -- the real-life murderers Leopold and Loeb in Chicago. The featured bit parts are played by Samara Weaving (Ready or Not) and Tony Revolori (from The Grand Budapest Hotel and the MCU Spider-Man series), which makes it that much more fun. While we're comparing this film to others in the franchise, let's be sure to tie it to Scream 2: it takes place -- more or less -- in a college setting, its climax is in a theater auditorium, one character dies from a bone-crunching fall, and at least one killer is related by blood to a previous killer.

It's that opening sequence that brings Ghostface back, still voiced by Roger L. Jackson, and that gets the plot going, as Sam is of course brought in for questioning by Detective Wayne Bailey (the excellent Dermot Mulroney), who is also Quinn's father and concerned about his daughter's safety in proximity to the Carpenter girls. Meanwhile, Sam has been carrying on a secret relationship with their brooding but hunky neighbor Danny (Josh Segarra from Arrow and AJ and the Queen) while getting some dubious counseling from her therapist (Henry Czerny). It doesn't take long for Gale Weathers (the flawless Courteney Cox) to show up, and then we get the delicious and warmly welcome surprise appearance of Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere) for the first time since the 2011 Woodsboro murders (in Scream 4). Okay, now I think we've covered all the cast. There are many of them, so it's only a matter of time before more bodies start to fall.

And that's about all I can say without risking more important spoilers. I'll try to avoid many more, but otherwise you may want to stop reading.

Sadly, we do not get the glory of Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) in this installment, a disappointing result of some pay dispute. Gale mentions early on that Sidney and her family have gone into hiding, so one certainly hopes that she and Mark Kincaid (Patrick Dempsey) are still together and that both might return in another sequel. Her absence is distinctly felt, but it also lets some of the other characters have more time to breathe, notably Gale herself, who finally gets the chance to talk with Ghostface on the phone herself while being targeted for an imminent attack.

The set pieces are stunning, and I found myself constantly on the edge of my seat. Most engaging was a vertigo-inducing climb across a ladder between two apartments; another was of course the much-publicized crowded train ride on Halloween night. And the attacks are particularly vicious; these might be the goriest and most brutal attacks of the series. What's interesting, though -- especially with Mindy's expected but lackluster "rules" for this franchise extension (if that's what we're calling requel sequels) -- is that the body count is shockingly low in this film. Shockingly, and annoyingly, as my friend and I discussed as we left the cinema. For all Mindy's remarks that at this point in the franchise, anybody is so much dead meat, this movie features a disappointing number of deaths. On the other hand, the attacks are so unbelievably violent that it starts to strain credulity that any of the main characters survived at all. In earlier films, a single stab or two would incapacitate a victim; here, they get repeatedly shot, sliced, stabbed, and broken, and they keep on fighting.

Maybe realism isn't key here, but it starts to feel like we're being toyed with as fans. Let's just hope they have some bloody good plans for these characters in future installments. As it is, even without the body count and our favorite final girl, Scream VI is an excellent addition to and evolution of the series.

Scream (2022)

Score: 4 / 5

What's your favorite scary movie?

We're finally going back to Woodsboro, for the first time since Wes Craven left us. I was an outspoken fan of the MTV series that he helped launch, though it ended with a bit of a whimper, and frankly I worried that would be the end of the franchise. But we live in an age when the horrors of our youth are returning with a vengeance, and our culturally jaded sensibilities about these things live on Reddit threads and Twitter in ways Kevin Williamson knowingly predicted back in 1996, when it was all cafeteria conversations and underground movie screenings. And with the fairly recent phenomenon of the "requel" -- a reboot and sequel that tends to go back to the famed original -- it makes perfect sense for us to Scream again.

This time, however, it's mostly new folks behind the scenes. Williamson is back as producer, while the screenplay is from James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick, and the film is helmed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (from Ready or Not, Southbound, and V/H/S). These new names, however, are uniformly determined to honor Craven's legacy, and much of this movie looks and feels like the franchise we know and love. There is a reason this series resonates so strongly with its cult fanbase, and this movie was clearly made by members of that group. Meticulously plotted, written within an inch of its own life, Scream 5, or as I prefer, 5cream (I'm sorry, but I just can't call it Scream), is a thrilling whodunnit, a razor-sharp satire on self-awareness in the age of information, and the most shockingly violent entry in the series.

It opens, as we expect, with a phone call, during which time an isolated young woman plays horror movie trivia with a murderous stalker. But the movie throws us a delicious bone to chew on as Tara (Jenna Ortega of You, Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous) reveals that she prefers "elevated horror" to slashers, and her favorite movie is The Babadook. A few other tasty references in the film include The Witch, Hereditary, and Jordan Peele, but those modern masterpieces aren't as palatable for psychopaths, who want to reinvent the proverbial wheel. The kids in this installment aren't oddballs like Randy Meeks (from the first two) who stock VHS tapes at Blockbuster all day; these are kids so disaffected by horror that they choose to stream a Stab marathon while in the hospital room of a girl who was literally just stabbed. Their knowledge surpasses that of the expert, but their wisdom leaves more than a little to be desired.

As bodies begin to pile up around town, the kids band together to hunt the killer. Of course, they do so while sitting around a sectional sofa and accuse each other. More than once during this movie, I wondered how on earth these kids were friends with each other, as they so readily and earnestly think each other butchers classmates. It's not tongue-in-cheek as it was in Craven's films. These kids live in a world where teens their age walk down streets with assault rifles on national television and get away with it. And the filmmakers know it, as they inject a fierce, terrifying brutality into the film's limited but intense kills; when one returning character is gutted in broad daylight in the front lawn, and that character's charming offspring gets his carotid slit in seductive and repulsive real time, my stomach was in tight knots.

Ghostface's return prompts Tara's sister Sam (Melissa Barrera of In the Heights) to return to town, her boyfriend Richie (Jack Quaid of The Boys) in tow. Much like the original heroine of the series, Sam has some really dark family history, and it's revealed surprisingly early to us in a series of haunting visions she alone can see. Without spoiling it, we get a delightful legacy cameo, and the inclusion of this plot devices works hard to validate some of the weirder elements of the usually more-disparaged Scream 3. Fewer than 20 minutes into this movie, it's already established an incredible amount of information and detail, to say nothing of its expansive cast, which includes Randy's twin nephew/niece pairing Chad and Mindy (Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown), Tara's protective friend Amber (Mikey Madison), group friend Liv (Sonia Ben Ammar) whose boyfriend was recently butchered, and legacy character Judy Hicks (Marley Shelton), now sheriff, and her son Wes (Dylan Minnette).

It's a huge cast, and then the real legacy characters come in. Sam and Richie enlist the help of Dewey (David Arquette), the retired and perhaps slightly disgraced former sheriff, who is consoling himself with the bottle following Gale's divorce. The news leads him to call Gale (Courteney Cox) and Sidney (Neve Campbell), and before you know it, they're back in town. They're not the focus of this film, but they are treated with profound respect and authority, not unlike the legacy characters in the Star Wars or Jurassic World requels. Each of the three made me cry in this movie, and the love with which their characters are treated is nothing short of satisfying. But, as we know (or will learn from the Meeks kids), requel rules are different; legacy characters will likely end up on the cutting room floor this time around.

Whereas Craven learned his craft from John Carpenter and even Alfred Hitchcock, the new directors here model their craft from Craven, and so this movie feels authentically part of the franchise. It's by no means my favorite entry, or even favorite sequel, but it is a solid, thoroughly entertaining movie that sparkles and chills in all the right ways. It's frustrating at times, but in the way that most slashers are, and that's part of the calculated risk of this genre. While it's hard not to wish for Craven's impossibly tight control of editing and content -- never a slack moment in any Craven film -- and frankly the performances of the young cast leave a bit to be desired, it's really not fair to compare this work with the Craven entries. Let's just be thankful we can still visit Woodsboro for a creepy good time again, and frankly, I think we'll be returning again soon.

Ready or Not (2019)

Score: 4.5 / 5

In easily the biggest surprise yet this year, Ready or Not combines pitch-black humor with murderous thrills to perfectly entertaining effect.

On the night of her marriage into the wealthy Le Domas family, Grace is invited to partake in a family tradition: a game night, in which she must draw a card from a mysterious box and the family will play the game on that card. Sounds simple enough, but when the box delivers the game of Hide and Seek, the family members can scarcely mask their own horror. The game begins, but as Grace navigates the darkened mansion (still in her ghostly wedding dress, no less), the family members arm themselves with archaic weapons and prepare to hunt. It's The Most Dangerous Game by another name.

Then again, the game itself would be more dangerous if the hunters actually wanted to do the deed. See, the family isn't just a bunch of crazed killers as the trailer suggested. They are rather obligated to pursue Grace based on the traditional rule of the game, handed down for generations, since the patriarch of the Le Domas clan struck a Faustian bargain for fortune. Or, at least, so the myth goes. So we have a normal, stupid rich family with plenty of internal drama forced to engage in a ritualistic sacrifice in order to (supposedly) stay alive the following day. It's hilarious, because several members of the family don't even believe in this tradition, and so they must navigate between solidarity with the family, their affection for Grace, following tradition, and of course their own not-so-latent capitalist bloodlust.

The cast, led by a magnificent Samara Weaving, is uniformly excellent. The script is clever and chilling, knowing and witty, turning in somewhat unpredictable ways to an ending that flips more than once. And while the cinematography leaves more than a little to be desired -- its handheld levelness is disappointing in a film that so aggressively challenges convention -- the gorgeous sets and costumes distract you enough to compensate.

It's the rare film that suggests almost too much to sound entertaining. Casual discussion could range anywhere from feminist diatribes about misogyny in horror to celebrations of messianic womanhood (don't tell me the scene where she descends into a hellish pit and then ascends by getting her hand stabbed through with a nail isn't obvious), from Marxist critiques of diabolical sacrifices for capital to historicized surveys of cinematic family rites gone horribly wrong, from Satanic panic to revenge thrills, and beyond. And yet, for all its weight and depth, Ready or Not is also just a ton of fun. As any game should be.