- 2 days ago
Get ready for a showdown! Samara Weaving is back in her wedding dress to play another game of hide-and-seek, this time with her sister, while Zazie Beetz is laying a beatdown on a high-rise of Satanists! Somehow these two very similar films were released a week apart, so which does Film Brain think is superior?
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome to Projector, and on this episode, Samara Weaving and Zazie Beetz have to survive the night against
00:05a group of Satanists out to kill them in two different films.
00:09But to quote Harry Hill, which is better? Ready or not to? Or they will kill you? There's only one
00:15way to find out. FIGHT!
00:34Ready or not, Here I Come picks up right where the first film left off, with Samara Weaving's Grace being
00:39taken to hospital, encountering her estranged sister Faith, played by Catherine Newton.
00:44But they are soon both kidnapped, as by surviving the Lodomus family, Grace has triggered a second game of hide
00:50and seek, this time against the other families of the council to win the high seat and a ring that
00:56rules the world.
00:57Hunted and handcuffed to Faith, Grace must try and survive until dawn, again.
01:03Meanwhile, in They Will Kill You, Zazie Beetz's Asia Reeves has just been released from prison, and takes a job
01:08as a housekeeper in a prestigious New York apartment building, the Virgil.
01:12But on her first night, Asia is attacked by a Satanic cult, led by Patricia Arquette's Lilith, who intends to
01:17make her their latest sacrifice.
01:20But Asia is far from helpless, and she has her own reasons for being at the Virgil.
01:25Now, you might be familiar with a phenomenon called twin films, which is when two separate movies get made about
01:30the same subject that are very similar, and end up being released roughly around the same time as each other.
01:36Sometimes it's by happenstance, sometimes it's deliberate, and I'm sure you can think of a few classic examples.
01:42Armageddon and Deep Impact, Volcano and Dante's Peak, Ants and a Bug's Life, and that time we had two movies
01:49about Christopher Robin.
01:50But normally these films are spaced out a bit so they don't actively confuse and undercut each other with audiences,
01:56because that's just bad for business.
01:59So I have never seen a situation quite like what we have here, where we have two action horror comedies
02:05about a female protagonist who has to melee her way through the Satanist trying to kill her.
02:09These are both being actively promoted at the same time, and released only a week apart.
02:14Hell, I only saw them days apart at two sneak preview screenings.
02:18In fact, when I went and saw Send Help, I even got the trailers back to back, to which my
02:23friend leaned in and said,
02:24Is it me, or did we get the same trailer twice?
02:27And he wasn't wrong, they're extremely similar.
02:30So much so that Ready or Not 2 has actually shifted release dates a few times,
02:34as it was originally due in April, and then on the same date as They Will Kill You,
02:38and then finally moved to the week before, seemingly to get the jump on the other.
02:43It's a battle to the death of the box office almost as much as the films themselves.
02:47And rather than do two virtually identical reviews,
02:50I figured it would make more sense to talk about both of them and compare them.
02:55So may the best final girl win.
02:57Ready or Not, Here I Come, to give its full correct title,
03:00which I won't use again because it's a bit too long-winded,
03:03does feel a little belated as a follow-up coming seven years after the first film.
03:07Obviously the reason why is that everyone's been very busy since,
03:11as it was the breakout movie for Samara Weaving,
03:13who has become a hugely prolific screen queen,
03:15and for Radio Silence, who went on to direct the fifth and sixth screen films,
03:20and Weaving was the opening kill in the latter,
03:23and the vampire flick Abigail.
03:25That last one, with an ensemble group of thieves locked in a house,
03:29already felt like the spiritual successor to Ready or Not in terms of premise and execution anyway,
03:33especially by repeating the gag of having characters explode into bloody messes,
03:38which has since become Radio Silence's trademark.
03:41And even Radio Silence themselves weren't involved in developing a sequel for a long time,
03:46until they started working on a movie for both Weaving and Katherine Newsom from Abigail to do together,
03:50and a few calls later, it got folded into the Ready or Not world.
03:54But in addition to Weaving and the directors returning,
03:57the producing team and the original film's writers, Guy Busiek and R. Christopher Murray,
04:02are also back for the sequel too.
04:04I actually re-watched Ready or Not, and it still holds up,
04:08although it was a bit more restrained than I remember it being.
04:11I always remembered it as being a bloodbath, because of that very memorable finale,
04:15but that's literally at the very end.
04:17It's the cathartic punchline to a long joke.
04:20There's a few other gruesome bits,
04:22but it's mostly about mixing suspense with a lot of humour about the Lodomas family,
04:26and how inept they are at playing their own game,
04:30constantly bickering amongst themselves.
04:32I think Make the Argument that the first Ready or Not
04:34might be one of the most influential horror films of the last decade,
04:38because so many since have tried to emulate its mixture of dark comedy with genuine horror,
04:44with a dash of social commentary,
04:46which itself owes a little bit of a debt to Get Out.
04:49And a movie like They Will Kill You definitely makes an argument for Ready or Not's significance,
04:53as you can draw a very direct line from it,
04:55and even a few moments apparently taken from it.
04:58There's a bit where Zazie Beetz punches out a kid after they attack her,
05:02and there's an almost identical moment in Ready or Not.
05:05That being said,
05:06They Will Kill You is clearly inspired by a whole range of other films as well,
05:10and we'll get to more of those in a bit,
05:12and that includes Your Next,
05:14which likely helped inspire Ready or Not in the first place.
05:18They Will Kill You is notably produced by brother and sister Gio,
05:21Andy and Barbara Muschetti,
05:22under their new production label, Nocturna.
05:25You might recall that Andy Muschetti directed the It films,
05:28which Warner Brothers have been selling it on in their marketing.
05:31He also directed The Flash,
05:33but we try not to talk about that too much.
05:35It's held by Russian director Kirill Sokolov,
05:38who also co-wrote the script,
05:39and is making his Hollywood debut,
05:41having been known for the cult hit,
05:43Why Don't You Just Die?
05:45If you're familiar with that,
05:47then you might have a good idea of what Kirill is bringing to the table,
05:50and the things that will stay apart from Ready or Not.
05:53Ready or Not 2 is clearly a sequel that is aware of its own ridiculousness.
05:57Apparently, Radio Science directors Matt Bettinelli-Ulpin and Taylor Gillett
06:01did write a teaser for a potential sequel when they made the first film
06:04that hinted at a larger universe,
06:07but they cut it,
06:08and they were right to do so at the time,
06:10as that movie has a great final scene,
06:13and Ready or Not could have been left as a one-and-done
06:15with a self-contained story
06:16that wasn't really a need for a sequel.
06:19But it tries to make the fact that it's so unnecessary part of the joke.
06:23Even the choice to pick up directly from where it left off is a brave choice,
06:27although it also adds to the absurdity of going through it all over again,
06:31as it continues on to show Grace collapsing
06:34and having to be revived in the ambulance on her way to the hospital.
06:37This is purely to get her patched up a bit.
06:39You might remember that she got shot through the hand
06:42and stabbed in the shoulder before the chaos starts up again.
06:46The big wink of how contrived and ridiculous this whole thing is
06:49is when Grace is forced to put on a bloodied,
06:52torn-up wedding dress back on from the evidence bag
06:55with a half-hearted excuse,
06:57there's no time to find any clothes,
06:59and film like a superhero getting into their battle armour
07:02complete with those yellow converses.
07:05It's completely preposterous.
07:07That's why it's funny.
07:08And Red Elk 2 is definitely a classic example of a sequel.
07:12The same thing done on a bigger scale and more of it.
07:16Almost like the Home Alone 2 of Splatterfest.
07:18Did you like the bloody combustion gag at the end of the first flick?
07:22Well, we get it right from the very start here and several more times.
07:26And there's scarce the amount where Weaving and Newton
07:28aren't being freshly lacquered in other people's blood.
07:31It's no bad thing.
07:32The excess is the point.
07:33Although, you might feel by the end that Radio Science has got as much mileage out of this gag
07:38as they possibly can across three films now.
07:42Am I likely showing behind-the-scenes footage of them filming these scenes
07:44because I can't actually show them if I want this video to be monetised?
07:49Probably, but expanding out the world does have its pros and cons in much the same way it did for
07:54John Wick.
07:54Now we have a whole council of families who have all pledged themselves to missile the bail
07:59with a fun cameo from David Cronenberg as the head of the Danforth family who rules over the world.
08:05He's introduced watching a war on TV with no sign of ceasefire until he cools up and instantly makes it
08:11happen.
08:12A moment which I don't think was meant to be as topical as it plays right now at this very
08:17moment.
08:18His twin children, Sarah Michelle Gellar's Ursula and Sean Hattersey's Titus
08:22are among those competing in the game and the whole thing takes place on their estate and hotel.
08:27Both Gellar and Hattersey are clearly relishing being bad.
08:31If you've seen Cruel Intentions, you'll know that Gellar is at her most fun when she's being wicked
08:36and I'm sure having to wield a stake brought back plenty of Buffy flashbacks.
08:40But it's Hattersey that stands out in the pair as the insecure male heir who starts out as an arrogant
08:46dick
08:47but then gradually peebles back the layers to reveal just how much of a nasty piece of work he truly
08:53is.
08:54And the sequel expands its satire of the elites by aiming squarely, but rather appropriately right now,
09:00at oligarchy and their insidious control over the world.
09:03So yeah, we've got four new families now.
09:05There's also the El Cadio family led by Lester Carbonell's Ignacio,
09:09the Wands led by Olivia Cheng-Zhen Jing,
09:12and the Rajahs led by Nadim Umar Khitab's Viraj.
09:16Okay, technically there's five, as Abigail's scene-stealer Kevin Durand represents the Wilkinsons,
09:22but you don't really stick around very long in what is basically a cameo.
09:26If you saw the trailer, you probably knew that.
09:29So while it does mean we get a bunch of new characters in fighting,
09:32Varun Saranga gets some laughs as the cowardly Madhu Rajan who tries to avoid getting in battle,
09:38the downside is that the film has to set up and introduce all of them.
09:42And that means that while the film tries to get a running start,
09:45it's soon slowed down by the hurdles of exposition.
09:48Much of it is delivered by Elijah Wood's lawyer,
09:51who's there to lay out the rules and contractual obligations with a slightly deranged officiousness.
09:55And while it is delivered with a smirk,
09:57there is still an extremely lengthy scene where all the characters have to have everything explained to them
10:02on top of the opening scenes where Grace recaps the whole previous movie for Faith
10:06and the audience members who didn't see it.
10:09The first film also took a bit of time to get started,
10:11but that was building suspense and tension in the lead-up.
10:14This, however, is more just bloat.
10:17And while the Domus family weren't all fully sketched out,
10:20there's now too many characters,
10:22something that's even acknowledged by a rule that if they kill a member of a competing family,
10:26everyone in the offending bloodline goes SPLAT.
10:28That's a Chekhov's gun if I ever heard one,
10:31and clearly there to thin out the ranks,
10:33although admittedly one of the sequel's funniest bits.
10:36But this all speaks to the unevenness of the second film,
10:39which is broader but only works in fits and starts.
10:42They Will Kill You, on the other hand, has considerably less baggage,
10:46but that doesn't mean its world building isn't any less flawed.
10:49That delivers its exposition between action set pieces largely in crucial flashbacks,
10:55parceling out information that recontextualizes the narrative.
10:58The apartment building setting of the virtual has some fun ideas,
11:02but it feels like it got a little bit lost in the shuffle.
11:05The movie introduces the idea that every flaw is somehow themed around a deadly sin
11:09by having a flaw of lust, but then that's almost quickly forgotten about.
11:14Likewise, there's some interesting hints about the building's history,
11:17especially with Patricia Arquette's Lilith and Patson Joseph's Ray,
11:20an interracial couple from the early 20th century,
11:23and the implication is that they chose to live in the Virgil
11:26to protect themselves from prejudice at the time.
11:28That's an interesting idea, but not one that's fully explored.
11:33I also have to give a bit of a mention to Arquette's attempt at an Irish accent,
11:36which is, um, not good.
11:39Like, it took me most of the film to realise this was supposed to be Irish bad.
11:43Arquette's a fantastic actor, but that brogue is a distracting misjudgment.
11:48The film opens with a quote from Cellini,
11:50when the poor give to the rich, the devil smiles,
11:53and that sets up that it's going to be a vicious allegory,
11:56but again, only in the broadest strokes.
11:59The first level is for the housekeeping staff,
12:01who are aware and complicit in the Satanists' activities,
12:04and many near-sacrifices themselves.
12:07But the themes of class and race,
12:08the people that enable cruel hierarchies if it protects themselves,
12:12isn't fully fleshed out either.
12:14And the actual story of They Will Kill You is its weakest part,
12:18as it does feel like the script needed a few more drafts
12:21to make the commentary more prominent and coherent,
12:23something which the Ready or Not films are better at.
12:26The Satanists are a bit Ready or Not coded as well,
12:29in that they're a bit bumbling,
12:30although in this case,
12:32it's more because they're not actually used to a quarry that fights back,
12:35which catches them by surprise.
12:37Heather Graham's beauty gurus Shannon and Tom Felton's Kevin
12:40are among the Satanists in pursuit of Asia,
12:43and both are game.
12:44That's especially true for Graham,
12:46in her most prominent role in years,
12:48who puts herself in a lot of the stunts and comedy,
12:50and gets some of the worst carnage inflicted upon her.
12:53Just as committed as always is Ready or Not 2's Samara Weaving,
12:57who adds a weary, battle-hardened edge to a reprisal.
13:01In the first film, she was more naive and trying to make a good impression,
13:05but this time she doesn't give a damn,
13:07and is determined to survive,
13:09because if she did it once,
13:10she can bloody well do it again.
13:13Weaving's howling scream has been pretty iconic in its own right,
13:17but she's an excellent comic performer,
13:19even managing to score chuckles with her expressions in close-ups.
13:22But the sequel escalates this up to buddy comedy,
13:25by teaming her up with fellow rising horror star,
13:28Catherine Newton.
13:29The existence of a sister is a bit of a retcon,
13:32the first film stated that Grace didn't have a family,
13:34having gone through the foster system,
13:36hence why she so wanted to be accepted by the Lodomuses.
13:40This sequel tries to tweak that,
13:41so now they were both foster children,
13:44but Grace moved to New York when she was just 18,
13:46and Faith felt she was abandoned,
13:49and has only been brought back into her life
13:50because she was still listed as her emergency contact.
13:54I didn't mind this,
13:55because I was excited when I heard that Newsom was going to be in the sequel,
13:59because she excelled in horror comedies like Freaky and Abigail.
14:03It should be a great combination,
14:05but I felt that Newsom was strangely underutilised here.
14:09Faith is mostly a reactive character,
14:11which makes sense,
14:12as she's effectively how Grace was in the first one,
14:15given she's been dragged in the middle of this mess,
14:17with no idea what's going on.
14:20And Newton does get a few amusing moments,
14:22as a foil to weaving,
14:24responding to the insanity,
14:25especially people blowing up in front of her.
14:28But I wish she got a few more standout moments of her own,
14:31as too often she exists to be helpless,
14:33and even spent most of the film's finale
14:35just standing around on the sidelines doing nothing.
14:38And as a double act,
14:40too much of the interaction between Grace and Faith
14:42is them bickering and arguing about their past,
14:45which again stops the movie cold,
14:47when it should be moving when things are life and death.
14:50They're trying to go for this found family angle,
14:53but their backstory is too cliché to land emotionally,
14:56when their dynamics should have leaned more towards comedy.
14:59It's not really the performer's fault,
15:01the script should have given them more.
15:03Zazie Beetz in They Will Kill You
15:05is also intensely dedicated,
15:08and it's honestly the kind of role
15:09I've been waiting for her to get for years.
15:11Beetz first caught my attention back in Deadpool 2,
15:14and I've often described her as perennially underutilized,
15:18as she kept getting stuck in these underdeveloped supporting roles
15:21that didn't make use of her charisma.
15:23But in this movie though, she's ferocious,
15:26as she puts herself through scene after scene
15:29of intense choreography.
15:30It's actually her first lead role,
15:32and she seizes it with both hands,
15:34managing to be tough, but also protective.
15:37And there's a definite echo of Pam Grier in her performance.
15:41In yet another link between the two films,
15:44They Will Kill You is also about sisterhood,
15:46as Asia is out to rescue her sister Maria,
15:49played by Mahala from the show Industry,
15:51whether she wants to or not.
15:53And it's strange to say that this movie
15:55handles the estranged sister plotline
15:57better than Ready or Not 2 does,
15:59but the relationship between them feels better integrated into the narrative,
16:03and feels more like the crux of it,
16:04rather than halting its momentum.
16:07The differences of the story is about Maria,
16:10whereas Faith just happens to be there at the time.
16:13Where the second Radio or Not feels more confident than its predecessor
16:16is in the action sequences,
16:17which are much bigger and more accomplished.
16:20That's partly down to radio science getting better as directors,
16:23but also because this is bigger in scale.
16:26As I say, there's more explosions of many kinds.
16:30I think the best moment in the sequel
16:31is easily the fight scene between Grace and Maya J's Francesca,
16:35loaded with physical comedy from both participants
16:37being pepper sprayed and fumbling around.
16:40Certainly enough to provide a counterbalance
16:42to the fight scene that Faith has at the same time,
16:45which is easily one of the film's darkest moments,
16:48cross-cutting between comic violence
16:49and nastier, more sustained and realistic violence.
16:53But that mixing of tones does mean
16:54that when the movie goes darker in a final third,
16:57which tries to tie things up full circle,
16:59it again feels like it slows down,
17:01where it should be powering towards a big finish.
17:04It does eventually get there,
17:06but it does wobble a little bit towards the end.
17:10But action is clearly where they will kill you most at sales,
17:13because Sokolov directs the hell out of this movie.
17:16It's clearly an extremely horror literate film.
17:19The premise, inspired by his own experiences
17:21of living in an apartment building,
17:23is also inspired by Rosemary's Baby.
17:25There's a kid named Damien,
17:27and it has the feeling of 70s exploitation cinema.
17:30But maybe that's because it owes such a gigantic debt
17:34to Tarantino, especially Kill Bill,
17:37particularly with blood squirting out of severed limbs
17:40and, um, some of the foot stuff.
17:42Although I suppose the fact that Asia has to battle through
17:45without her destroyed shoes is also an odd to Die Hard,
17:48although it more often reminded me of something like The Raid.
17:51The fight scenes are amazingly photographed,
17:53particularly the first in Asia's room,
17:55with the camera gliding through the action,
17:58using movement in place of rapid cuts.
18:01That allows you to see all the careful choreography and gags
18:04in a clean, dynamic way that's hugely enjoyable,
18:08almost resembling a side-scrolling beat-em-up at times.
18:11Sokolov's use of the camera is extremely inventive and playful,
18:13giving a highly pulpy and stylised feel to the material.
18:17The fight scene in the dining room bringing a new mean to the term
18:20Fire Axe is also a merrily staged showdown
18:23as a piece of visual storytelling.
18:26And because the Satanists are effectively immortal,
18:28regenerating after losing their heads and limbs,
18:31it quickly becomes like a violent cartoon
18:33as they keep coming back for more and refusing to die.
18:37The action scenes are gloriously OTT and excessive,
18:41and there's almost a bit of a Raimi edge to the humour,
18:43especially in one sequence involving a severed eyeball
18:46roaming around of its own accord,
18:47which is delightfully daffy.
18:50But like Ready or Not 2,
18:51They Will Kill You does begin to fatigue
18:53as it gets into the home stretch,
18:55mostly because it does start to become
18:57a little bit repetitive by the time of the finale,
19:00or maybe there's just a bit of exhaustion
19:02from it being so fast and frenzy from beginning to end.
19:05But as an action fan, I was mostly highly entertained.
19:09So which did I like better?
19:10Honestly, neither of them are bad.
19:12They're both fun and flawed,
19:14and they would make a good double feature with each other,
19:16although maybe have a couple of hours gap between them first.
19:19Ready or Not 2 is more of the same,
19:21for better and for worse,
19:23trying to top the previous film,
19:25and the results are a bit more uneven,
19:27but it does have some great bits in it.
19:29But I did think by the end of it
19:31that it stretched the concept as far as it could possibly go,
19:35particularly in the latter half,
19:37and there was something about it
19:38that just left me feeling slightly underwhelmed.
19:42To my surprise,
19:43the one that I enjoyed most out of the pair
19:45was They Will Kill You,
19:46which I definitely did not expect.
19:49Yes, it's derivative,
19:50but it's also completely crazy,
19:52and directed with such verve and wit.
19:55Yes, it does have the weaker script,
19:57but it also has some incredible fight scenes,
19:59and I'm just a sucker for that kind of thing.
20:02It has the energy of a proper Midnight Madness movie,
20:05and if you can,
20:06try to see it,
20:07or both of them,
20:08in the grungiest cinema you can,
20:10with a crowd.
20:12If you like this review,
20:13and you want to support my work,
20:14you can give me a tip on my Ko-fi page,
20:16or YouTube's Super Thanks feature,
20:17which is right below the video.
20:19Or you can help slay the evil forces of the algorithm
20:21by joining my Patreon,
20:22where you can see my videos early,
20:24among other perks,
20:25including access to my Discord server.
20:27And you can also join YouTube memberships
20:28for similar perks.
20:30Or you can just simply like,
20:31share,
20:31and hype the video.
20:32It really does make a difference.
20:35Until next time,
20:36I'm Matthew Buck,
20:38feeding out.
Comments