The Wrath of Becky (2023) is an American action thriller directed by Matt Angel and Suzanne Coote, the sequel to Becky.
Quick Specs
- Year: 2023
- Directors: Matt Angel, Suzanne Coote
- Screenplay: Matt Angel — story by Matt Angel and Suzanne Coote
- Production: Post Film, BoulderLight Pictures
- Music: Nima Fakhrara
- Runtime: 83 minutes
- Rating: R (MPA) — strong bloody violence and gore, pervasive language and some sexual references
- Premiere: SXSW Film Festival, March 11, 2023
- Release: May 26, 2023 (Quiver Distribution) — theaters; digital June 16, 2023
- Box office: $207,118
- Franchise: Becky — second film, between Becky (2020) and The Last Temptation of Becky (2026)
Overview
They took her dog. Anybody who has seen Becky knows how that ends for the people holding the leash. The Wrath of Becky brings Lulu Wilson back two years after the lake house — sixteen now, harder, funnier about it — and repeats the first film’s best trick: casting a beloved comic actor as the monster. This time it’s Seann William Scott, Stifler himself, gone quiet and cold as the leader of a fascist militia cell.
The sequel premiered at SXSW on March 11, 2023, opened in theaters that May, and pulled off the rarest move in low-budget horror: it reviewed better than the original — 89% on Rotten Tomatoes to the first film’s 72%, Certified Fresh. New directors Matt Angel and Suzanne Coote kept the gore, loosened the tone, and let Becky enjoy herself a little. So does the movie.
Plot
Two years after she escaped the violent attack on her family, Becky Hooper has burned through foster homes and settled into an off-grid existence with her dog Diego — until Elena, a kindred-spirit older woman, takes her in and gives her something like a life. Becky works at a diner. She keeps her head down. She has, to her own visible irritation, become almost okay.
Then three members of an extremist group called the Noble Men walk into her diner, and one of them — Anthony — can’t leave well enough alone. Becky answers his misogyny with a lapful of hot coffee. That night the Noble Men follow her home. They attack the house, they kill Elena, and they take Diego.
So Becky goes back to work. Tracking the cell to a remote cabin, she finds its leader, Darryl, and something bigger than a dog theft: the Noble Men are staging an armed attack, and Becky — with her homemade traps, her stolen intel, and two years of practice at being underestimated — is standing in the way of it. They should have left the dog alone.
Production
The sequel happened fast and cheap, the way this series likes it. Producer J. D. Lifshitz approached Angel and Coote in December 2021 with no marching orders beyond “make a Becky sequel,” and the pair wrote the script in about three weeks — Angel rewatching Kill Bill for tone, the two of them aiming for the comic-book energy of Kick-Ass and Edgar Wright rather than the first film’s grim handheld siege. The film was announced in June 2022 as Becky 2: The Wrath of Becky, with Scott set as the villain and both he and Wilson also serving as executive producers.
It was shot in secret in New Jersey in eighteen days. Wilson, who had real creative input this time, pushed to soften Becky — to let her start the film at something like peace, so the wrath has somewhere to fall from. Cinematographer Julia Swain ditched the original’s handheld style for slick steadicam moves, and Nima Fakhrara returned to score it. The whole production stayed invisible until it surfaced at SXSW — a sequel nobody announced, arriving fully armed.
Cast & Characters
Lulu Wilson is Becky Hooper again — sixteen, off the grid, and working hard at a normal life she was never built for. Seann William Scott is Darryl, the Noble Men’s soft-spoken cell leader: where Kevin James’ Dominick was a true believer with a temper, Darryl is a zealot with a plan, and Scott plays him at a whisper. Denise Burse is Elena, the woman who shelters Becky and pays for it.
The Noble Men fill out with Michael Sirow as Anthony, the hothead who starts the war; Aaron Dalla Villa as DJ; Courtney Gains as Twig; and co-director Matt Angel himself as Sean. Jill Larson plays Darryl’s mother, Darryl Sr. And late in the film, Kate Siegel arrives as Agent Montana of the CIA — a small role with very large consequences for where this series goes next. Pac Williams returns as Diego, the Cane Corso, the best boy, the casus belli.
Release
The Wrath of Becky world-premiered at the SXSW Film Festival on March 11, 2023, and Quiver Distribution released it exclusively in US theaters on May 26, 2023, with a digital release following on June 16. It grossed $207,118 in theaters — modest money, but this series was never about opening weekends; it is about the cult that keeps growing between films. It runs 83 minutes and is rated R for strong bloody violence and gore, pervasive language and some sexual references.
Reception
The sequel out-scored the original nearly everywhere that counts. The Wrath of Becky holds 89% on Rotten Tomatoes across 57 reviews — Certified Fresh — with a consensus that welcomes “another round of whooping on bad guys”; Metacritic has it at 51, the familiar split for this series between critics who get the joke and critics who don’t. Meagan Navarro called it an “irreverently delightful time”; RogerEbert.com judged it an outright improvement on its predecessor; IndieWire’s notice — “kills are gruesome and clever, Wilson is a wonder” — could serve as the franchise’s coat of arms. Collider went furthest, calling it “the perfect revenge thriller for processing 2020.” The tonal shift did the work: same blood, more grin.
Trivia
- The entire film was shot in secret in New Jersey in eighteen days; it was not publicly confirmed until the SXSW premiere approached.
- Angel and Coote were given roughly three weeks to write the script, and took Kill Bill, Kick-Ass and Edgar Wright as their tonal compass.
- Seann William Scott and Lulu Wilson both served as executive producers, alongside the first film’s directors, Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion.
- Co-director Matt Angel also acts in the film, playing the Noble Man Sean — he does not survive his own movie.
- Kate Siegel’s Agent Montana is the bridge to The Last Temptation of Becky (2026), where Siegel returns and Becky’s story takes its strangest turn yet.
- Wilson specifically asked the filmmakers to soften Becky’s edges for the sequel — she wanted the character to have grown in the two years between films.
- Read the series in order: start with Becky (2020), continue to The Last Temptation of Becky, and browse the full Horror Movies index.