Politicians love to tout the family as the seat of all virtue. But in two recent movies, family rituals take on a far more sinister cast. At first glance, these films have nothing in common: Anniversary ★★★1/2 (streaming on Disney+, Hulu and rental platforms) is a star-studded prestige drama, while Ready or Not 2: Here I Come ★★★1/2 (in theaters) is the sequel to a popular blood-spattered horror comedy. Yet both of them take us on scary journeys that start at home.
Had I gone into Anniversary cold, I might not have stuck it out, because the early scenes have the stale cuteness of Ella McCay. We watch the well-off Taylor clan gather for the 25th anniversary of Beltway restaurateur Paul (Kyle Chandler) and Georgetown professor Ellen (Diane Lane). While he’s affable, she’s borderline insufferable, preaching liberal centrism to her students in half-baked academese. The four Taylor kids also come off as stereotypes, designed for sitcom-style bickering: Anna (Madeline Brewer) is an abrasive comedian, Cynthia (Zoey Deutch) has a model marriage and career, Birdie (Mckenna Grace) is a quirky high schooler, and Josh (Dylan O’Brien) is a failed novelist.
Then a dark note enters the celebration in the form of Josh’s new girlfriend, Elizabeth (Phoebe Dynevor), a former student of Ellen’s who clashed with the professor over her beliefs. Now, Elizabeth has penned a manifesto called The Change, which argues that a one-party system is the only way to heal America’s political polarization. By the time the Taylors mark their 30th anniversary, Elizabeth’s book will have spurred a movement that has reshaped the nation. The Taylor family will be changed, too, and not for the better.
It’s tempting to dismiss Anniversary as just another uninspired effort to demonstrate that fascism can indeed “happen here.” Directed by Jan Komasa (Warsaw 44), who cowrote with Lori Rosene-Gambino, the movie lacks the satirical sophistication of Eddington, Bugonia and other recent attempts to capture the current political moment. Groan-worthy dialogue abounds, especially toward the beginning, and many of the characters feel like sketches. We never learn much about how the Change works or why it catches on.
But that last “fault” is actually a stealth strength of Anniversary. Like much of the acclaimed recent protest cinema of Iran, this is a chamber drama, less concerned with the mechanics of state repression than with their ruinous effects on individuals. And that tight, relatable focus gives many later scenes a chilling impact.
The lead actors can transform the script into riveting drama even when it reads like a second-rate Arthur Miller imitation. Lane and Chandler project flawed warmth, O’Brien convincingly metamorphoses from a sad schlub into a preening tyrant, and Dynevor makes our skin crawl from first scene to last. While we never learn Elizabeth’s motives (another savvy omission), we see that her genius lies in clothing her cold-blooded ambition in the language of self-help, populism and “unity.” Believable details like this make Anniversary feel all too real.
By contrast, almost nothing is plausible about Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, again directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and written by Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy — nor is anything meant to be. This is another story of an interloper who near-single-handedly ruins a powerful family, but this time, we’re rooting for her.
In the 2019’s Ready or Not, waitress Grace MacCaullay (Samara Weaving) marries into a rich clan only to learn on her wedding night that she’s their quarry in a deadly game of hide and seek. The sequel starts where the last film left off: with Grace as the game’s sole survivor, in a blood-soaked ball gown and Chucks. When the EMTs ask her to explain the carnage, she offers an eloquent shrug: “In-laws.”
Grace’s travails have only begun, however. First, she finds herself handcuffed to a hospital bed and protesting her innocence to her scrappy, estranged kid sister, Faith (Kathryn Newton). Next, she’s abducted by the international cabal of Satan-worshipping dynasties to which her late husband’s family belonged. Grace’s survival has upset their balance of power, so six families must vie to kill her, with Faith dragged along for the ride.
While this premise may sound like a conspiracy theorist’s fever dream, the film plays it strictly for laughs. The campy villains range from the diabolically devious Danforth twins (Sarah Michelle Gellar and Shawn Hatosy) to a swaggering, incompetent marksman (Nestor Carbonell) to the devil’s own Lawyer (Elijah Wood), who explicates the absurdly byzantine rules of the game.
Weaving is a likable scream queen with a hilarious range of reaction shots, and the screenplay shows solid comic instincts even when it drags. It’s good fun to watch Grace and Faith triumph over their enemies through sheer luck, pluck and sisterly solidarity.
The closest Ready or Not 2 comes to politics is a scene in which the Danforth patriarch (David Cronenberg himself) brings a war to ceasefire with a single phone call. (In a sight gag, the cable news chyron behind him has changed by the time he hangs up.) For better or worse, no one wields quite that much power in reality. But if you’re reeling from the grim relevance of Anniversary (or just the actual news) and eager to cheer on the demise of the world’s wealthiest and least deserving families, this sequel’s for you.
This article appears in March 25 • 2026.
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