After we final left our new bride, Grace, on the finish of 2019’s “Prepared or Not,” she was smoking a well-earned cigarette, having survived an evening of slaughter. She sat on a stone step as a mansion went up in flames behind her, her wedding ceremony costume ripped and caked with blood, filth and dirt (however principally blood.)

“In-laws,” she’d defined drily, when requested by police what had occurred. It was the largest snicker of the film — and likewise well-earned, particularly by us, in any case that gore.

Now, seven years later, we now have “Prepared or Not 2: Right here I Come,” which takes off from that very same second. However the temper doesn’t stay gentle. Uttering that final line, Grace (Samara Weaving) then collapses into unconsciousness and is carted away by ambulance. And her troubles, after all, are simply starting.

It’s arduous to pinpoint why this subsequent degree of Grace’s very unhealthy wedding ceremony night time, once more directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, feels darker and heavier — and therefore, much less pleasant — than the unique, which managed to keep up a bouncy really feel, even with our bodies combusting at an absurd charge. But when we now have guilty somebody, we’re gonna go together with the physician from “The Pitt.”

Yep, that may be Shawn Hatosy, and we’re sorry, expensive good-looking Dr. Jack Abbott, however we by no means thought you may be such a downer. There’s a very odious scene the place Hatosy’s character, Titus, appears to echo the murderous Shakespearean protagonist that he’s, come to think about it, in all probability named after — Titus Andronicus. His twin sister, Ursula, is performed by Sarah Michelle Gellar, and collectively they’re fairly the miserable duo.

However again to the plot: Grace had triumphantly stayed alive ’til daybreak within the first film, thus successful the dastardly sport she’d been compelled to play moments after marrying Alex, her wealthy boyfriend. Required by household ritual to attract a sport card from a deck, she’d unluckily drawn hide-and-seek, which meant she needed to disguise whereas the prolonged household hunted her down with weapons each vintage and fashionable. Solely gritty Grace survived.

The supporting forged of the primary film, together with Andie MacDowell and Adam Brody, isn’t again (duh). Of their place is a brand new group, together with Hatosy, Gellar, Elijah Wooden because the lawyer who runs the grim proceedings, and Kathryn Newton as Grace’s sister, Religion.

Or ought to we are saying estranged sister. Religion reveals up at Grace’s hospital mattress, having not seen her in years, as a result of she was listed as Grace’s emergency contact. There’s a detective within the room, too. Grace is now, annoyingly, suspected of arson and homicide.

However quickly none of that issues. As a result of, it seems, Grace is being hunted but once more — not by her in-laws, the Le Domas household, which is gone, however by 4 different households jockeying for the Excessive Seat on the council that guidelines the world.

And so Grace is captured, and everybody converges on a Newport, Rhode Island, property with a beautiful golf course, for an additional night time of looking. Is Grace as much as the problem of this new degree of play?

In fact she is, and so is Weaving, who proves but once more that she’s higher than the fabric: expressive in each concern and feistiness, an excellent screamer, and in a position to step again for an occasional second of humor. Lookalike Newton proves an interesting companion, and naturally Religion and Grace cease bickering and begin bonding — did you count on anything? “I attempted to ask you to the marriage,” Grace says helpfully at one level. Reminder: the marriage resulted in a massacre.

Talking of a massacre, deep into the film’s manufacturing notes comes an icky statistic: Some 250 gallons of stage blood had been used for the movie. Possibly all that blood was wanted, however the further quarter-hour of run time, in comparison with the unique, really feel pointless. You begin to marvel when daybreak will come.

And whereas many of the deaths have a cartoonish factor, there’s nothing cartoonish when Titus is concerned.

No, there’s little to redeem this really mendacious character. So honest warning: In case you’re nonetheless in the course of the present season of “The Pitt,” the place Hatosy’s Abbott is busy being heroic and likewise taking off his shirt, it may be higher to attend a bit earlier than you watch him right here, doing the very reverse of saving lives.

“Prepared or Not 2: Right here I Come,” a Searchlight Photos launch, has been rated R by the Movement Image Affiliation “for robust bloody violence, gore, pervasive language and transient drug use.” Operating time: 148 minutes. Two stars out of 4.