Commentary: The Ending Of ‘Ready Or Not’ Leaves Little Room For A Sequel
by Frank Martin
Horror movies love sequels. This mostly stems from the fact that they are relatively cheap to produce and yet bring in decent-sized numbers at the box office, making them financial successes for the studio. If an original horror film such as Ready Or Not does well enough, studios will find a way to justify a sequel, even if the story makes a sequel move difficult. That doesn’t mean a sequel is impossible. There’s always an idea out there to keep a franchise going, but in this case, the justification will be even harder.
— Spoilers Follow —
The film centers on a bride named Grace (Samara Weaving), who marries into her husband Alex’s (Mark O’Brien) family. They are very wealthy and very traditional, insisting the wedding be at their estate and that everyone play a ritualistic game at midnight. Whenever a new member of the family joins, they must use a mysterious puzzle box to decide what game to play. However, if the game chosen is hide and seek, they must catch Grace and sacrifice her to ensure their own survival. Of course, she fights back, and the family fails to complete the ritual, causing them all to die upon sunrise.
The way horror movies continue into a sequel: finding some mechanism for the villain to return or someone else to take up the mantle. This is what happens in franchises such as A Nightmare on Elm Street or Scream. But the mythology behind Ready Or Not is very specific towards Alex’s family. In fact, this family has been conducting this ritual for generations. At the end of the film, their eradication is total and complete. The curse that was tailored to them has stopped, thus ending the cycle. It was a definitive conclusion to the conflict. That doesn’t preclude a new a premise for a sequel, but the first movie made it that much harder to orchestrate one.
Ready Or Not is now streaming on Hulu.
