Ready or Not 2: Here I Come is a more or less satisfying continuation to one of the stand-out ‘final girl’ thrillers of the past decade.

Seven years in the making, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, collectively known as Radio Silence, return after creating one of the most iconic horror images of the late 2010s: Samara Weaving’s Grace MacCaullay in a blood-drenched wedding dress.

Having witnessed her devil-worshipping in-laws explode into puddles of viscera upon reaching the end of a game of hide-and-seek, it’s only a matter of hours before Grace becomes ensnared once again by a sinister cabal of wealthy elite.

With a power vacuum left tantalisingly open at the head of a secret satanic society that supposedly controls the world, Grace, along with her estranged sister Faith (played by Kathryn Newton), are smuggled onto the Danforth estate where unhinged twin heirs Ursula (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Titus (Shawn Hatosy), along with representatives from three other powerful families, must track them down and kill them to secure their legacy.

Grace and Faith’s bickering dynamic is, thankfully, immediately compelling, with Weaving’s new co-lead bringing a sparky energy to propel us through more of the same ‘eat the rich’ slasher fare. While the reason for their estrangement is a little half-baked, their chemistry is believable enough to give us two heroines to root for through the barrage of Radio Silence’s signature blood-and-guts carnage.

Luckily for gore fans, Ready or Not’s follow-up delivers in spades, unleashing some particularly gnarly kills early doors to make up for the seven-year wait between instalments. You get the sense that the directors’ fervour for violence had been a little restricted by their somewhat more grounded Scream instalments, now relishing another opportunity to soak and slash their stars with wince-inducing creativity.

However, this is still a sequel with a capital S, and horrorheads who opt for back-to-back viewings of the Ready or Not films may find the follow-up a little familiar, with the fresh ideas beginning and ending with the introduction of Grace’s sister.

The new hunters, which also include Néstor Carbonell, Olivia Cheng, and Varun Saranga, with Elijah Wood’s dependably slimy lawyer overseeing proceedings, are more boisterous and colourful this time around, though ultimately forgettable, and even the most exciting names in the cast are a little underserved.

Buffy star Gellar brings an appropriate amount of camp and class, though she is sidelined for Hatosy as the rather one-note primary villain, a terrifying physical threat in some of the more upsettingly brutish moments of violence, though his motives are quite dull and predictable.

Horror aficionados excited to see body horror icon David Cronenberg in a rare acting role are likely to leave disappointed, too; despite featuring in the opening credits his appearance is little more than an extended cameo to kick off proceedings, though his glowering does remain in portrait form during sequences in the Danforths’ labyrinthine hotel that serves as the sequel’s new arena and, admittedly, he does get one of the film’s best jokes.

These peppered moments of humour are the biggest clue that none of this is to be taken too seriously, and Weaving and Newton are clearly thrilled to be chewing scenery together, dropping one-liners and cocking shotguns like a harmonious marriage of 80s brawlers and slashers. Their spiky back and forth is the only thing that would merit a third film in the franchise, as the deepening of Ready or Not’s satanic lore is little more than surface level and all the loose ends seem to be tied up.

A must-watch for camp horror fans, especially for Weaving’s striking look in the final act, which almost, but not quite, surpasses her blood-soaked wedding gown, Ready or Not 2 largely feels like Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett going through the motions to deliver a crowd-pleasing follow-up to keep fans and the studio happy until they come up with something more substantial.

After their rather lacklustre 2024 vampire-ballerina thriller Abigail, their first original project since Grace’s first run-in with the murderous elite in 2019, hopefully the duo have something a little more explosive in the barrel for next time.

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come is in UK cinemas now.