Ready or Not (2019)

Director: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett

Story: Guy Busick, R. Christopher Murphy

Cast: Samara Weaving, Mark O’Brien, Adam Brody

Music: Brian Tyler

Time: 95 minutes

Bottom-line: Gruesome and bloody, but an entertaining horror flick

Normally, I am the guy who avoids horror films. But when the genre of Ready or Not was mentioned (on Wikipedia) as “black comedy horror thriller”, I knew this was something different. The film stars Samara Weaving in the lead role, with an ensemble supporting cast.

 

Weaving as Grace

With family, one hopes for the best.

The Le Domas family is a wealthy clan, and the newest family member is Grace (Weaving), the wife of Alex Le Domas (O’Brien). After the marriage ceremony, Alex tells Grace that as part of the family tradition, she has to play “a game” at midnight – chosen at random by drawing a card – to officially become a family member. Grace’s card says “Hide and Seek”, and Alex’s father says she gets to hide, while the whole family’s task is to find her. Grace “wins” if she remains hidden till dawn. Little does she know that the family’s objective is not just to find her, but also to slay her.

 

O'Brien as Alex

They think they have to kill you before sunrise.

Right from the outset, there is such a clear difference between Grace and the other family members. Some people make it obvious (“They’re just trying to figure out if you’re a gold-digging whore”), while others talk behind her back, but you can see that Grace’s cheerful demeanour, radiant smile and energetic voice just don’t fit in. Apart from the exotic mix of characters of the Le Domas family, the setting of this film is so good – the ominous mansion, the accompanying background score and the camerawork that captures the violence and gore and other surprises so well that you are regularly jolted. 

 

A glimpse of the Le Domas family

Ready or Not is, in essence, Get Out: Part 2. One person stuck in a weird house with all sorts of strange people must fight a bloody battle to save his skin. It helped that I could afford to mute the movie and minimise the screen whenever needed, otherwise, there’s a lot of violence and screaming and disfigured faces that you might want to avoid. And, of course, I’m sure Tarantino would be proud of the amount of bloodshed in the film. Nevertheless, the pace of the movie never slackens, with several sequences where you are at the edge of your seat. The plot twists are well-timed, and the last scene is just perfect.

Samara Weaving is the star of the show – you think she’s alone in her battle but she has actually drawn the support of the entire audience. You cheer for her in every small victory, her screams make your stomach turn, and you gasp synchronously. Her performance is reason enough to at least watch the film, even if you end up not liking it.

The strength of Ready or Not is the fact that it comes off as a “crowd-pleasing” horror flick, in the sense that it strikes the balance between cheesy violence and gore. It is a macabre watch, best watched on an empty stomach, but you can be guaranteed of entertainment.

My Rating: 3.5/5

Rotten Tomatoes rating: 89%