Becky is back and more deadly than ever — and we love her for it. The Wrath of Becky sees Lulu Wilson return as the titular character in a bloody revenge thriller that improves upon the original while leaving the audience yearning for more. The movie opens with a scene that effectively recaps the original for those who may not have seen it and catches everyone else up on how Becky escaped the foster care system after brutally murdering a group of neo-Nazis that attacked and killed her family. The plot for Becky is fairly simple, and this opening scene allows for easy entry into the film, though the first film is definitely worth a watch.

Written by Matt Angel, Suzanne Coote, and Nick Morris, The Wrath of Becky has a very tight script with little to no wasted space — within the first twenty minutes of the film we’re invested in Becky’s new life and her relationship with an elderly woman named Elena (Denise Burse). This is disrupted when a group of pseudo-Proud Boys, calling themselves the “Noble Men,” rolls into town and she lets her intrusive thoughts win at work, knocking a cup of coffee into one of their laps. And because this type of man can’t let anything go, they follow her home, steal her dog, and kill her caregiver. Elena’s death is difficult to watch, and it effectively opens the floodgates for Becky to unleash every ounce of pent-up rage she’s been holding onto for the past two years.
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‘The Wrath of Becky’ Is the Perfect Revenge Thriller for Processing 2020

Image via Quiver Distribution

The events of 2020 heavily influence The Wrath of Becky, and it makes for an incredibly cathartic slasher because of its very obvious real-world implications. The movie boldly — and accurately — makes it clear that groups like the Noble Men are white supremacist terrorists. Much like the first film, the antagonists in The Wrath of Becky are a group of men that doesn’t leave any room for sympathy. They’re the worst kind of people, and we’re rooting for Becky to get them from the jump. While it’s hard to watch the Noble Men spew racism, misogyny, and their lust for violence, it also feels like we rarely see movies, even of this genre, that say the quiet part out loud and truly acknowledge how awful these people are. The movie also pays a nice homage to fellow female-led revenge thriller Promising Young Woman in little things like the way Becky paints her nails and her diner uniform echoing the retro style and coloring of the nurse costume Carey Mulligan wears in the climax of that film.

The group that Becky unleashes her wrath upon features a range of the type of men who join groups like the Proud Boys. There’s the leader, who thinks of himself as a good person as he’s “a disciple for the cause.” He’s calm and menacing, and he thinks that fear is the most effective tool (it isn’t!) for gaining power. Then there are the 4chan dudebros who think they’re god’s gift to the planet while being openly and violently misogynistic and the incels who think they’re smarter than the men they associate with. The Wrath of Becky also poses that the type of men who are spinelessly complicit are just as responsible for their actions as the rest of the terrorist organization — and the second that they do stand up, the group swiftly turns on them and eliminates any kind of dissent. There’s even a matriarchal white woman who has aligned herself with these men in her hatred.

In direct opposition, Becky is the perfect embodiment of female rage — it’s cathartic to watch her unleash her wrath on the kind of men that would like to see women and minorities wiped from the face of the earth. While the kills in the first movie were quite imaginative, they also erred slightly into the fantastical. The Wrath of Becky grounds its kills more in reality, but it doesn’t pull back on the gore whatsoever. The story allows Becky to fantasize about the most outrageous versions of each kill before having her opt for an aggressive insult or a chopping spree with a machete instead.

On top of the highly efficient first act of The Wrath of Becky, you get a real sense of satisfaction in the writing when the movie circles back around for the eleventh-hour twist. A character that Becky runs into on her quest to find the Noble Men turns out to be the matriarch/mastermind behind their whole cell. Then, as she and her son are provoking Becky in an attempt to torture answers out of her by hurting her dog, their own violence leads them straight to their end with a gratifying payoff for the viewer.

Becky’s Franchise Potential Is Endless

Image via Quiver Distribution

The Wrath of Becky capitalizes on a thread from the first film and uses it to set up franchise potential. The key that the neo-Nazis were looking for comes back into play, and it’s revealed that it contains secret coordinates. The movie doesn’t answer the question of what it leads to — and any attempt to have done so in this sequel would’ve likely made the movie bloated and complicated. However, it also doesn’t forget about that mystery and gives the audience enough to run with that we’d want to see explored in a third movie.

The movie also ends with a fantastic cameo from Wilson’s Haunting of Hill House co-star Kate Siegel, in which she invites Becky to become the youngest member of the CIA. You could argue that Becky is somewhat overpowered as a character — and maybe she is — but that’s part of the draw of these movies. Becky is invincible because she has to be and because we want her to be. She’s the result of a millennia of pain and anger experienced by generations of women, finally allowed to give in to her most violent and vengeful instincts.

The plot for a Becky movie doesn’t have to be wildly complex to be incredibly satisfying. There is unfortunately no shortage of horrific people in the world, so we’re in no danger of running out of story potential. I would happily watch Becky violently take out every iteration of white supremacist known to man. Lulu Wilson is also certainly one to watch, having already delivered fantastic softer performances in shows like Hill House and Star Trek: Picard, with the Becky movies allowing her to run in the complete opposite direction to show off impressive range.

While a third movie might spell danger for Siegel’s character as Becky’s caregivers don’t tend to make it very far in these movies, it would be incredibly entertaining to watch the two of them team up and take out the entire list of Nobel Men. Both actresses are excellent horror leads and there are several ways that a sequel could explore their dynamic with Siegel serving as the M to Wilson’s 007.

Rating: A

The Wrath of Becky is out now in select theaters and available to stream on Vudu.