SXSW 2026 Reviews: ‘Ready or Not 2: Here I Come,’ ‘Over Your Dead Body,’ ‘Power Ballad’
When coming to the SXSW Film Festival, the main attraction for pass holders and ticket buyers can be some of the grand titles that lead the Headliner section or Festival Favorite sections of the lineup. The reason for the former is to see some of the biggest stars and titles of the first half the year highlighted within SXSW’s main screening venue, the Paramount Theater, located in the heart of downtown Austin. For the latter, it’s a chance for films that have premiered at other festivals in the United States or Internationally to have a moment to shine before they are released in theaters. In my first dispatch for the 2026 SXSW Film Festival, we take a look at two of the anticipated headliners featuring a double dose of Samara Weaving in Ready or Not 2: Here I Come and Over Your Dead Body, as well as a festival favorite from Lionsgate, Power Ballad.
Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (Dirs. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett)
It’s been a fascinating ride on the big screen for directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, two of the members of the Radio Silence production team, and it all began with their breakthrough hit Ready or Not back in 2019. The success of that action-horror-comedy about a bride having to take on the rich, powerful family she’s married into was a fun enough game of thrills and bloody kills that landed the duo their chance to take on one of the biggest horror franchise of all time in Scream; which they made the fifth and sixth installments of. After the controversy surrounding the seventh film, the duo stepped away given the direction the studio wanted to take the franchise, and they set out to make the entertaining hidden gem from last year, Abigail. They now return to the property that made them who they are as Ready or Not 2: Here I Come picks up literally moments after the events of the first film, where we find Grace (Samara Weaving), handcuffed to a hospital bed, waiting to make a statement to the cops as to why the Le Domas’ house was burned to the ground with bodies found on the inside. As she is waking up, her estranged sister Faith (Kathryn Newton) surprises her, asking what the hell happened, and how she ended up arrested. But before Grace could answer, the games begin again as her actions in the first film sends a chain reaction to the other four games that made a deal with Mr. Le Bail, and are now without a dominant family in charge of their devilish, world dominating cult. So in order to see which family will take over the Satanic throne of power, a member of each family must compete in a new round of “Hide and Seek,” with the target of course being Grace, and after they are captured and sent to the location of the games, but now has a new added bonus in the form of Faith. The two sisters must fight for their lives, and survive by the time the sun comes up in the morning to gain their freedom.
From the time the new round of “Hide and Seek” begins, this is where Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett get to have the most fun by not only upping the violence with more exploding bodies, and elaborate kills, but they also get to add much need lore to the sequel about this cult of the all-powerful without going overboard. It’s the type of leveling up that happened for the John Wick franchise that feels like it’s dancing on the right line between the ridiculousness of the rules at play yet the audience totally buying in given the wild ride they are on. The additions to the cast also add a freshness to the sequel that is much needed, as newcomers Sarah Michelle Gellar and Shawn Hatosy are stellar as the Danforth siblings, the family that’s been waiting to take over for a long time and now has the chance to do so after their father (David Cronenberg, yes the legendary director) passed away. Newton’s chemistry with Weaving is solid for the most part, though they are let down by repetitive, clucky scenes of heavy dialogue that slow down the momentum of the film to try and find an emotional connection to the siblings falling out. It’s a forced storyline that needed to be cut down, but once you get past it (as it’s mostly in the first half the film), the second act becomes a hilarious, thrilling ride to a goofy, gory conclusion that is in tone with the ending of the first installment. While Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett know how to make an entertaining popcorn flick, it will be curious to see where they go after this, or if they continue to stay in this similar formula they’ve created. Either way, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come is an improvement on the first film in every way and does make me excited to see what they do next, even if it is more tales of Grace and Faith (the silliest names ever, by the way).
Grade: B
Ready or Not 2: Here I Come will be released in theaters from Searchlight Pictures on March 20.
Over Your Dead Body (Dir. Jorma Taccone)
One of the great comedic directors of the last decade was Jorma Taccone, whose films MacGruber and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping are some of the funniest films of the last twenty-five years, consistently providing laughs that linger long after their delivery. Also a member of The Lonely Island, Taccone’s comedic reputation is widely known to everyone, practically my generation, for raising them on his team’s brand of comedy. So with his latest films, Over Your Dead Body, he steps away from his original brand of humor to make an uneven action thriller remake of the Norwegian thriller, The Trip, that’s step for step the plot of the original film, with a few jokes that feel like a standard Taccone film, but they are too little to register a positive reaction.
Dan (Jason Segel) and Lisa’s (Samara Weaving again, her web connects us all) marriage is falling apart. The two have been arguing for years, with Dan struggling to find passionate work as a director that made Lisa fall in love with him in the first place for his creative mind, and he’s become tired of her lackluster choices in life that resulted in her mediocre acting career, which lead to her falling in the arms of another man. When they head to a cottage for a weekend getaway and try to rekindle their passion for each other, we come to the realization that neither of these two actually want to fix their marriage, they want to end it by killing the other. This is when Over Your Dead Body works best; when Segel and Weaving are doing the heavy lifting, allowing for hilarious moments between them to shine because their chemistry is so good as their venomous couple on the verge of killing each other in whatever way they can, even if they both are terrible at committing to the violent act. They each get a moment to tie the other person up, and shine on-screen in telling their wicked version how they were going to kill the other, which is the most entertaining part of the film, even if we keep jumping back and forth in time to show how things go into place, a narrative device that feels much more jarring than it shows. Over Your Dead Body moves at a pretty great pace till the second half of the film unfolds involving three escaped convicts (Timothy Olyphant, Juliette Lewis, Keith Jardine) who have been hiding in the attic of the house, waiting for the couple to leave. It then becomes a boring, standard action comedy about our main couple trying to escape the clutches of these dangerous, murderous convicts, and it turns what was an interesting, humorous look at modern marriage into a pretty standard film by the end that goes full Looney Tunes with how it gets to its conclusion. Saved only by the work of Segel and Weaving performances, Over Your Dead Body barely gets to live as its own thing, even though it feels tied down so much to its original source material, losing a chance to be creative with this world.
Grade: C+
Over Your Dead Body will be released in theaters from IFC on April 24.
Power Ballad (Dir. John Carney)
For close to two decades now, director John Carney has made some of the most earnest, delightful films with the power of music at the center of them. His latest film explores just how much a song can mean to someone, and how that meaning can show that there is more to life than playing a sold out show in Madison Square Garden. Rick (Paul Rudd) is a wedding band singer that gets the chance to have an all-night jam session with Danny Wilson (Nick Jonas), a renowned popstar, after one of his gigs where the famous singer surprised the bride and groom. Over the course of a night where they are drinking, smoking, and sharing various songs, Rick plays a song that becomes the center piece of the film, “How to Write a Song Without You;” co-written by Carney for the film, and is one of his best songs he’s put on to screen. The two part ways, and when he returns to his studio in Los Angeles, struggling to come up with a comeback song, Danny lifts the song as his own and makes it a global anthem, leaving Rick to have to prove that the song is his, without having any proof to show his family or friends that he’s written best biggest song in the world. It leads the two on a collision course in the third act of epic proportions, putting the song right in the middle of them, and questioning if fame is worth losing your integrity in the process.
While it is a simple premise, the signature Carney emotional connection is there and it never fails to impress as he’s been doing it consistently for such a long time. This time, however, the ace up his sleeve is Rudd, who delivers one of the best performances of his extensive career, allowing us to fully buy into Rick’s roller coaster journey with this song, and how by the end, he has nothing to lose when confronting Danny, making peace with the fact that he made that song, and who he wrote it for; which is something that can never be taken away. Jonas, playing almost a version of himself, is good alongside Rudd, with Peter McDonald (who co-wrote the film with Carney) stealing every scene he is in as Rick’s best friend, guitar player Sandy. If you love Once, Begin Again, and Sing Street, then have no fear as Carney and company deliver another toe-tapping wonder that continues to showcase Carney as one of the heartfelt, caring filmmakers working today.
Grade: B+
Power Ballad will be released in theaters from Lionsgate on June 5.
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