Ready or Not 2: Kathryn Newton Explains Getting ‘Parent Trapped’ by Radio Silence
Exclusive: Ready or Not 2's directors and stars tell us about horror history, bonding over puzzles, and, yes, that time Samara Weaving and Kathryn Newton were tricked into hanging out in a game room.
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Since breaking out with their segment “10/31/98” in the first V/H/S anthology from 2012, the filmmaking collective known as Radio Silence has established itself as masters of outrageous, gory horror. From Ready or Not to their two Scream entries to Abigail, a Radio Silence film promises vibrant characters, witty banter, and so, so much blood. But when prepping their latest, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, the directors drew from an older, much more family-friendly source of inspiration.
“There was a screening of the first movie, and we knew that we wanted Kathryn Newton to be the sister of Samara Weaving‘s character, Grace,” says Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, who co-directed Ready or Not 2 with Tyler Gillett. “So we just invited Kathryn to the movie, and we went out to dinner after and, she and Samara were snickering together within 30 seconds of meeting.”
“I was fully Parent Trapped!” shouts Newton.
Working from a script by Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come picks up right where the first movie ends. Newlywed and newly widowed Grace has survived the deadly game of hide and seek that her in-laws forced her to play as part of the devil’s bargain that secured their fortune, only to find that a new conglomerate of rich families will now hunt her. Worse, they’ve forced Grace’s sister Faith to play along too.
Thus Weaving and Newton were needed to dwevelop the immediate rapport of sisters, something that went even better than the filmmakers expected.
“She invited me over, and she has puzzles,” Newton enthuses of her Parent Trap rendezvous. “She does puzzles that are, like, a thousand-pieces. And she’s got a cat! … She just opened up and made it really easy to love her and fall in love with her. I want to be around her all the time. They wrote in where we’re handcuffed together, so then I got to be next to her, and no one thought it was weird.”
Parent-trapping stars to create instant chemistry is the type of old-school movie trick that horror filmmakers have used for years. But for genre veterans Elijah Wood and Sarah Michelle Gellar, the latter of whom plays evil rich woman Ursula Danforth and the former who plays “the Lawyer,” horror has changed a great deal in recent years.
“I feel like it’s more respected than it’s ever been. I think people understand that you can do so much more and it isn’t just written off as just horror,” observes Gellar. “When you’re looking at our Academy Awards, and Sinners is up there, you realize that the genre offers great roles. I also think that the genre has opened up in its ideas. They don’t have to be just straight slasher films these days. I think of Ready or Not 2 as a drama; it’s comedy; it’s horror; it’s a love story. You’re really able to cross genres now.”
Adds co-star Wood, “I think it’s great seeing horror and genre in general being respected. It’s not sidelined or considered ‘B’ cinema. I think it’s given real budgets and great actors and really great roles,”
“Wait, there are budgets? Wait, you got paid for this?” interjects Gellar, before turning to her directors and saying, “We need to talk later.”
Of course, the new normal doesn’t mean that Wood and his co-stars have forgotten their roots. As seen in the trailer, Wood’s character gets to loudly, and quite often, declare “Hail Satan!,” echoing the famous words from the climax of Rosemary’s Baby.
“It was pretty awesome,” Wood admits. “When you first utter it out loud in front of a group of people, it feels a little like, ‘Oh fuck, what did I just get to say?'”
“We were both behind the monitor thinking, ‘Oh fuck, what a crazy, crazy choice!” says Gillet of Wood’s delivery. “It was so committed. It was like he’s done this before,” he adds, with a bit of suspicion.
Without missing a beat, Gellar picks up on her director’s sinister suggestion and says: “Well, Elijah and I take our roles very seriously. We did a lot of research.” And then, allowing her own register to turn dark promises, “We’ll tell you about it some time.”
That’s a creepy turn for a conversation that began by invoking Disney movies, but such delightful combinations are a hallmark of a Radio Silence movie and, as Gellar and Wood suggest, the future of the genre.
Ready or Not 2: Here I Come opens in theaters on March 20, 2026.