Michael’s Review: Ready or Not

Fun is nice. In times like this, when political sides are in constant attack mode and the world is questioning how the future will unfold, there’s nothing quite like a bit of fun to distract from it all. If that fun can be congenial for just about all walks of life, then all the better. The rich being crazed cultists hunting down one of us normies? Heck yeah, that’s both fun and within the realm of possibility.

Samara Weaving stars as Grace, a working class girl betrothed to Alex De Lomas (Mark O’Brien), the youngest heir to the De Lomas gaming dynasty. After their wedding at the palatial De Lomas estate, Grace is asked to take part in a peculiar family tradition: she has to play a game.

Joined by Alex’s alcoholic brother Daniel (Adam Brody), well spoken father Tony (Henry Czerny), and several other family members, Grace draws a card from a potentially supernatural box. It could be anything from chess to backgammon, but fate deals Grace the one card that brings deadly silence to the group: hide and seek.

As anyone who watched the trailer knows, things go a tad awry for Grace. Soon, she’s being hunted down by the family, who are convinced that if they don’t kill Grace then they will themselves die horribly. Some of them are uncertain about the reality of that premise, but the majority agree that they must murder the bride before sunrise. The blue bloods are out for, well, blood.

Beautifully shot by DP Brett Jutkiewicz, Ready or Not is one of those movies that just knows exactly what it is and how to get that across. Characters dealing with sudden shock are shrouded in razor-thin shallow focus, while the lighting and grading give the feel of a high end wedding photo.

Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, whom you may remember from Southbound and V/H/S, are unwavering in their confidence. Every scene is calibrated to amp up the tension and keep the film flowing without any lulls. These guys know how to keep an audience’s attention. That’s not to say their work is perfect, and in fact I would say they are sometimes too efficient for their own good, rarely stopping to really soak in a moment. This is a tight 90-minute thriller, and as such doesn’t have time to give Grace many John McClane moments.

If you’ve been paying attention to genre cinema, Samara Weaving’s likable, mildly quirky turn here is nothing new. Having cut her teeth in fun, lower budgeted fare like The Babysitter and Joe Lynch’s Mayhem, she almost feels like a horror staple already. In Ready or Not, she makes every little moment count, whether it’s the dumbfounded expression upon getting caught by our nefarious family or a well-executed giggle near the end, she’s never not working to put on a quality performance. Succinctly put, she’s just inherently likable.

Ready or Not is a fun, silly film that puts on a straight face and assuredly nails its premise from the start. In all honesty, I don’t even have a single real gripe. I’ve seen at least one person dismiss it as a You’re Next ripoff, but put bluntly that’s just a dumb comparison that unfairly negates both films’ lack of originality within the genre. It’s not about broad strokes, it’s about the little touches that bring the work to life. There are a few other films that bear some resemblance, but not enough to mention in lieu of potentially spoiling some unsubtle but worthwhile surprises.

While walking out of the screening, I overheard an elderly woman complain that the film was “too bloody” and due to that, she didn’t like it. Beyond a couple quick shots and one laughable display of excessive gore, Ready or Not is actually pretty tame in its kills and even puts in a lot of work to keep the film moving without relying purely on violence. The focus is our heroine’s journey, not the bloody scuffles that happen along the way… no matter how ghoulishly humorous they might be.

And rest assured, her journey is fun.