Warning: this article contains spoilers for Ready or Not 2: Here I Come – don't read on if you haven’t seen it...
Radio Silence, the director duo comprised of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, were originally planning on directing a stand-alone star vehicle for Samara Weaving and Kathryn Newton. Then they realised it could be a Ready or Not sequel.
“The big ideas, such as the High Council and the new game, all originated out of conversations we had with writers Guy (Busick) and Ryan (Christopher Murphy) several years ago, when we were first talking about what a sequel could be”, the pair told Zavvi. “It went through a bunch of iterations over the years that came and went, and at the same time, we worked with Kathryn on Abigail and had the idea that her and Sam should be in something together – we wrote a script without telling them.
“Serendipitously around that time, Ready or Not entered our lives again, and our big pitch was that the emotional core had to be that Grace has a sister, played by Kathryn. We never showed our script to our writers or really told them about it at length – we just gave them the broad idea of the family drama, threw it at them, and it came out like how we originally imagined it!”
The Rules Of The High Council
Picking up immediately where the first movie left off, Grace’s stay in hospital is cut short as she is kidnapped – alongside estranged younger sister Faith – by members of the High Council of elite families; super-rich, Satan worshipping oligarchs who can stop wars with a phone call. It was an idea that was originally toyed with as a potential post-credits scene for the first movie.
“The specificity of the High Council wasn’t there, it was just a bit of a joke; the idea that there were more families in this system, but the hierarchies weren’t explored there, it was just a three- or four-page scene ending with this reveal”, Bettinelli-Olpin explained. “One of the most fun parts of the creative process was designing really interesting rules which could have incredible payoffs, with consequences for the families who the rules forbid from killing each other.
“We didn’t want to just add rules and mythology without immediate consequence, as we have an allergy to that in movies; lore for the sake of it should remain offscreen, if it’s not affecting the immediacy of the story you’re telling. If the audience is being told something about the council, it’s going to pay off in an exciting way later in the plot.”
Hello – and Goodbye! - to David Cronenberg
The legendary Canadian director of The Fly, Videodrome, A History of Violence and countless more bangers is an inspired choice to play the man at the very top: Chester Danforth, the high seat of the council. He’s bedridden when we first meet him – although still able to stop the aforementioned wars with a phone call – and his kids Titus and Ursula (Shawn Hatosy and Sarah Michelle Gellar) smother him to death shortly after his introduction.
Why Cronenberg? “We’d auditioned a few people, and we were filming in Toronto and had to cast there, which is when our Casting Director started hinting that he lived in the city and that we should hit him up”, Gillett added.
“We had no idea if he’d say yes, but we jumped at the idea because he has so much gravitas and is such a hero of ours. But it was a Hail Mary casting idea, we never dreamed that he’d be in the movie, but the fact that he said yes and brings so much to a small amount of screen time is a testament to him – he has the weight you need.
“His first line onscreen is “approve the ceasefire” and I don’t know if that’s as funny or as biting from anybody else; it gets a big laugh in every screening, entirely because he performs it with such weight.”
As for the gigantic portrait of Cronenberg in character, seen in the background throughout the movie? Well, don’t expect that Holy Grail of movie memorabilia to be auctioned off anytime soon.
“That’s in our office, and it’s not leaving there!”, Bettinelli-Olpin laughed. “We had it shipped from Toronto to LA, and it was a 400-pound shipping crate, for a 15-foot-tall portrait – it was even larger than we thought it was going to be!”
Creating The Ultimate Evil
As the hunt begins and the two sisters face off against better equipped families, Titus is slowly revealed to be the biggest villain of them all. Even his sister thinks he shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the seat of power due to his unflinching psychopathy.
Moments of cartoonish violence and bloody explosions sit next to gruelling sequences where he beats up the two younger protagonists. It’s tonally at odds with the series to date, but the directors believe it’s key in ensuring this wasn’t simply a retread of the prior movie on a bigger scale.
“One of the things people loved about the first movie was how incompetent the Le Domas family was; they weren’t really believers, didn’t properly grasp the rules of the game, and all proved incapable of carrying out the task required of them. We wanted some of that in this movie, but we also need villains who were capable and could pose a threat to our heroes.
“The sequence where Titus catches Faith in the corridor was designed as a moment where the consequences of what’s happening become as real to the audience as they do for the characters. We want to unmoor you and make you realise this could go to a far darker place; the conclusion can’t be as satisfying and cathartic as it is without having the rug pulled from under you here.
“Titus’s arc, becoming a real monster, is essential to providing that surprise.”
Of course, the brutality in this sequence required a lot of trial and error about the level of violence an audience could take in what was otherwise a joyously silly splatter fest.
“There was an early version that went too far, and it felt like the movie turned on the audience, and they turned back on it in response! Then there was a version where we softened that fight between Titus and Faith too much, and the catharsis at the end felt missing, as you didn’t hate him as much as you wanted to.
“It was the biggest balancing act we faced, and we were trying to calibrate it right up until we finished the movie.”
Titus the Sarah Michelle Gellar Slayer
In a movie full of over-the-top deaths, it's jarring to see one of the most recognisable faces get killed off so suddenly – and so deliberately unremarkably – by Titus.
“Ursula is killed in front of Grace, and he’s almost showing off to her as he does it, and when you remember how he killed his dad, it adds a new layer of monstrousness – it's the moment you realise he’s not just evil, but truly unhinged. It’s not a fun death; we wanted it to play out in a way that felt disturbing.
“We all love Sarah Michelle, and it’s uncomfortable seeing her die like that. It puts you firmly in Grace’s position in a way that will carry you through the rest of the movie.”
The Explosive Finale
The rules and regulations of the High Council are turned against them by Grace in the final act, which leads to a joyously bloody finale. It was a challenge for the directors to stage – especially as it posed an even bigger problem.
“Those sequences require every department doing their absolute best work in a condensed amount of time, and the budget meant that we only had a chance to do it once. But the more challenging thing is that those aren’t the last scenes we shoot; we have to carry on using the set after them.
“With all the fake blood that’s flown around, the set becomes extremely difficult to navigate, and the shooting schedule becomes unstable as it’s landed everywhere. And on top of that, you don’t want to wear your good shoes to work on those days!”
