The original Ready or Not was lightning in a bottle: a tight, nasty little thriller that knew exactly what it was and executed perfectly. Samara Weaving running through a mansion in a wedding dress, covered in blood, hunting rich people trying to hunt her. Chef's kiss.

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come tries to recapture that magic by making everything bigger. Bigger cast (Sarah Michelle Gellar! David Cronenberg! Elijah Wood!). Bigger concept (multiple elite families competing in a deadly tournament). Bigger budget.

And yet the reviews are... fine. 76% on Rotten Tomatoes, 58 on Metacritic. Not bad, but not the slam dunk everyone hoped for.

The problem with horror sequels is they almost never understand what made the original work. Ready or Not succeeded because it was contained, focused, and had genuine stakes. One woman, one house, one night. The simplicity was the point.

Here I Come tries to build a mythology. There's a secret society of elite families. Ancient rules. A bigger conspiracy. And sure, Weaving is still great, and Kathryn Newton holds her own as her estranged sister. But the more the film explains, the less interesting it becomes.

Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (who also helmed the recent Scream films) are talented filmmakers who understand horror mechanics. The kills are inventive. The pacing is solid. But there's a sense of obligation here - like they felt pressured to justify a sequel rather than just tell a good story.

The cast does what it can. Gellar clearly relishes playing a villain, and Cronenberg showing up as the patriarch of another murderous wealthy family is perfect stunt casting. But they're all in service of a plot that feels both overstuffed and undercooked.

This is the sequel trap: audiences want more of what they loved, but "more" usually means losing what made it special in the first place. The Purge did this - started as a tight home invasion thriller, became a sprawling franchise about society-wide chaos. Same with The Strangers. Even A Quiet Place stumbled with world-building that nobody asked for.

Is Ready or Not 2 bad? No. It's perfectly watchable, occasionally clever, and Weaving remains one of the best scream queens working today. But it's a reminder that sometimes the best sequel is no sequel at all.