{"id":371686,"date":"2026-03-29T17:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T17:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/371686\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T17:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T17:39:08","slug":"horrors-favorite-formula-is-wearing-thin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/371686\/","title":{"rendered":"Horror\u2019s favorite formula is wearing thin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pop quiz: What do you get when you mix the helpless dread of \u201cRosemary\u2019s Baby<\/a>,\u201d \u201980s-era satanic panic, \u201cEverything Everywhere All at Once<\/a>\u201d winning an Oscar<\/a> for best editing, and the ever-growing economic disparity between the richest 1% and the working class? The answer is just about any recent horror movie you can think of \u2014 and the one playing in the next theater over, too.<\/p>\n

That may sound like an exaggeration, but if you head to the multiplex this week, you can catch a double-feature of \u201cReady or Not 2: Here I Come\u201d and \u201cThey Will Kill You,\u201d two films so remarkably similar in tone, style and theme that they read like parodies of each other. Their formulas are simple: A woman unwittingly finds herself in an isolated environment filled with satanist cult members who want to kill her to fulfill a Faustian blood pact. She must escape their clutches \u2014 the fate of the world might even depend on it \u2014 but she can only do it with the power of winking humor and clever violence. Watch as the fluid camerawork makes her kills look nastier, and the preposterous script allows her to outwit her foes, even with the cards stacked against her at every turn. If Quentin Tarantino<\/a> pastiche were a crime, these films would be hauled off to the clink. But I suppose someone\u2019s got to take up Tarantino\u2019s mantle while he\u2019s busy devising new ways to build a film around gratuitous foot shots.<\/p>\n

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(Searchlight Pictures\/Pief Weyman) Samara Weaving and Kathryn Newton in \u201cReady or Not 2: Here I Come\u201d<\/p>\n

These aren\u2019t kitchen-sink movies; they\u2019re garbage disposal rejects, alloys composed of leftover scraps. And the viewers who are supposed to see themselves in these tough-as-nails characters deserve better.<\/p>\n

Like so many horror trends, these gonzo cat-and-mouse games are a unique product of our time. Savage inhumanity is the new global currency, and while the world plunges further into war, the TikTok dance economy remains strong. It\u2019s bleak, to put it mildly. How do you make a film scary when every waking day is scarier? Give the audience a stand-in for themselves, a proxy they can use to project themself into whatever horrific scenario is playing out on-screen, and imagine fighting back. \u201cReady or Not 2\u201d and \u201cThey Will Kill You\u201d supply their characters with almost inhuman agency and dexterity because they reflect a moment when the viewer desperately wishes they could have those things, too. We fantasize about resisting makeshift regimes, about tearing the satanist scoundrels who control the world a new one. But, more often than not, retribution isn\u2019t an option. Helplessness is the flavor of the week, the month, the year. And if we can\u2019t go to the movies to escape this overwhelming feeling of forced vulnerability, where else can we go?<\/p>\n

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The problem isn\u2019t that so many of these types of films have popped up over the last decade, as fascism rears its head stateside; the issue is that they offer nothing new while building on an already rickety pile of haphazard horror rip-offs. It\u2019s far worse for a film to posture like it knows some grand truth \u2014 or pretend that it\u2019s saying something bold when it\u2019s not \u2014 than it is for a movie to admit that all it wants to be is fun. And that\u2019s where films like \u201cThey Will Kill You\u201d and \u201cReady or Not 2\u201d become mired by the ambition necessitated by the modern moviegoer. These days, a horror film must also be a blistering allegory for real life, with plenty of subtextual significance for the thinking viewer to glom onto. Horror movies need to be scary but relevant. They have to be entertaining but dire. And they must seem intelligent without actually being enterprising enough to stand out from the crowd of near-identical films. These aren\u2019t kitchen-sink movies; they\u2019re garbage disposal rejects, alloys composed of leftover scraps. And the viewers who are supposed to see themselves in these tough-as-nails characters deserve better.<\/p>\n

Oddly enough, the first \u201cReady or Not\u201d film felt like it was striking out at something new. When it was released in 2019, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett\u2019s movie slotted nicely alongside \u201cHustlers<\/a>\u201d and \u201cParasite<\/a>,\u201d all released in the same year and signaling a new guard of \u201ceat the rich<\/a>\u201d filmmaking that could poke fun at the wealthy without taking itself too seriously. \u201cReady or Not\u201d was a blast, and the ideal showcase for its star Samara Weaving, whose similar cat-and-mouse horror movie, \u201cThe Babysitter,\u201d \u2014 also about a satanist cult, but formed by horny teenagers \u2014 flew under the radar just a couple of years prior. In \u201cReady or Not,\u201d Weaving\u2019s blushing bride-to-be, Grace, discovers that she\u2019s marrying into a family of devil-worshippers who sold their souls for eternal wealth, and they must sacrifice her to keep the money rolling in. Some thrilling kills and generous splatter gore later, Grace comes out on top, using street smarts attained by growing up in foster care (of course) to battle her way through every last assailant. As a standalone film, it\u2019s a succinct tale of determination, and a very fun way to spend a Friday night.<\/p>\n

But this is 2026. Nothing stands alone anymore, and neither does Grace, who kicks off the sequel handcuffed to her sister, Faith (Kathryn Newton), and is tasked with playing the game all over again with a new set of ultra-rich opponents. Naturally, the evil goes far deeper than anyone could\u2019ve imagined, and the cabal of bloodthirsty billionaires has only multiplied \u2014 sound familiar? Grace and Faith must work together, using their namesake virtues to outsmart the scoundrels and stay alive, and to say it\u2019s far less effective than it was seven years ago is an understatement. The formula still entertains, sure, but its bite has been blunted by the weight of copycats that came after the first installment. If \u201cReady or Not\u201d appealed to viewers who felt like the world was stacked against them, \u201cReady or Not 2\u201d should alienate the same crowd, who have been made easy financial marks by a film that\u2019s by-and-large a beat-for-beat retread of the first.<\/p>\n

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(Warner Bros. Pictures) \u201cThey Will Kill You\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unfortunate that \u201cThey Will Kill You\u201d is landing in theaters alongside \u201cReady or Not 2,\u201d as writer-director Kirill Sokolov\u2019s film feels somewhat fresher than its thematic companion, ratcheting tension and crafting relatively compelling (if analogous) territory to explore. But the proximity of these two films only invites comparison. They\u2019re both about surprisingly skilled women who learned to defend themselves in unfortunate circumstances (in this case, Zazie Beetz<\/a>\u2019s Asia, who just got out of prison), duking it out against satanists. All the more unlucky: both Asia and Grace are urgently trying to protect their sisters from falling into the cult\u2019s grasp. Sokolov\u2019s eye for visual flair brings some much-needed panache to this well-worn formula, but even his playful directorial spirit isn\u2019t enough to shake the feeling that one has seen this film before. The characters\u2019 fate is predestined by cat-and-mouse conventions, and there are no big surprises when watching the parts come together. \u201cThey Will Kill You\u201d feels like helping my two-year-old niece put together a fairly simple, 12-piece puzzle, and watching her exclaim with delight before asking if we can assemble it again. Sooner or later, the final picture is going to lose its novelty.<\/p>\n

The more films like this we get, the less effective they are. We know the world is run by a cabal made up of the rich and powerful. The mask is off. The shock is stock. Millions of people voted to see these shadowy figures\u2019 ugly mugs on the news every single day.<\/p>\n

There is, however, some innovation to be found in \u201cPretty Lethal,\u201d Vicky Jewson\u2019s Prime Video original that bucks conventions where \u201cThey Will Kill You\u201d and \u201cReady or Not 2\u201d fail. Jewson\u2019s film is thankfully scrubbed of satanic panic, but still focuses on a damsel \u2014 or, in this case, damsels \u2014 in distress, attempting to escape the bizarre, clandestine ritual they\u2019ve found themselves at the center of. When their bus breaks down on the way to a showcase, a troupe of ballerinas led by \u201cDance Moms\u201d alum and one-time Sia<\/a> prot\u00e9g\u00e9e Maddie Ziegler<\/a>\u00a0becomes stranded in a remote hotel-bar-dungeon-arms factory outside Budapest. There, a wicked ex-dancer named Devora (Uma Thurman<\/a>, with a delightfully off-kilter Russian accent) makes the ballerinas pawns in a longstanding rivalry with a mob boss who killed her ballet career.<\/p>\n

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(Amazon MGM Studios\/Prime Video) \u201cPretty Lethal\u201d<\/p>\n

The story is completely absurd, filled with plot holes and characters as thin as a prima ballerina. Yet, \u201cPretty Lethal\u201d is packed with run-don\u2019t-walk folly that demands to be seen to be believed \u2014 if only to throw up your hands and say, \u201cI guess!\u201d The film may look a fair bit like its cinematic familiars, but there\u2019s nothing in \u201cThey Will Kill You\u201d or \u201cReady or Not 2\u201d that\u2019s as charmingly stupid as ballerinas putting box cutter blades in their pointe shoes and slitting their assailants\u2019 throats by pirouetting to \u201cSwan Lake.\u201d It\u2019s a cat-and-mouse movie with some initiative, and even if that drive ultimately goes nowhere, the film at least manages to make its characters\u2019 strength under duress believable. Blessedly, these ballerinas didn\u2019t learn their skills in prison or the foster system, and their tutus are not fodder for a satanic pyre.<\/p>\n

While I\u2019m reluctant to credit a film like \u201cPretty Lethal\u201d with moving this exhausted horror subgenre away from its threadbare formula, it\u2019s a twirl in the right direction, just as something like \u201cUrban Legend\u201d did in the \u201990s, when \u201cScream<\/a>\u201d rip-offs were all the rage. Horror is filled with trend-hopping and mimicry \u2014 the genre itself holds a mirror to our cultural anxieties, replicating them with chilling, hyperbolic intensity. But just like the blip in time when \u201cNo Strings Attached\u201d and \u201cFriends with Benefits\u201d attempted to revamp the romantic comedy for a new generation, and were bogged down by inevitable comparisons in the process, cinema is capable of giving us too much of a good thing. Watching women fight off the arms of the occult has a clock on it. The more films like this we get, the less effective they are. We know the world is run by a cabal made up of the rich and powerful. The mask is off. The shock is stock. Millions of people voted to see these shadowy figures\u2019 ugly mugs on the news every single day. We\u2019ve already been forced to figure out how to fight back, just to make each day bearable. Watching it play out all over again on screen is starting to feel less like a movie and more like a never-ending reality show.<\/p>\n

Read more<\/p>\n

about trends in horror<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pop quiz: What do you get when you mix the helpless dread of \u201cRosemary\u2019s Baby,\u201d \u201980s-era satanic panic,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,270],"class_list":{"0":"post-371686","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}