Movie Review: Ready or Not

Ready or Not **** / *****

Directed by: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett.

Written by: Guy Busick and Ryan Murphy.

Starring: Samara Weaving (Grace), Adam Brody (Daniel Le Domas), Mark O'Brien (Alex Le Domas), Henry Czerny (Tony Le Domas), Andie MacDowell (Becky Le Domas), Melanie Scrofano (Emilie Le Domas), Kristian Bruun (Fitch Bradley), Nicky Guadagni (Helene Le Domas), Elyse Levesque (Charity Le Domas), John Ralston (Stevens), Liam MacDonald (Georgie), Ethan Tavares (Gabe), Hanneke Talbot (Clara), Celine Tsai (Tina), Daniela Barbosa (Dora).

 

Ready or Not is a deliriously fun horror/comedy about the 1%. To say that it offers any real commentary on the super rich would be stretching it more than a little – that isn’t really what the film is offering. What it is offering in a wonderfully entertaining eat the rich comedy, with more than enough blood and gore to satisfy the horror movie crowd. It features what should be a star making performance by Samara Weaving – and finally fulfills the promise at feature length than directors Matt Bettinelli-Olph and Tyler Gillett (working as Radio Silence) showed all the back in 2012’s original V/H/S.

 

Ready or Not doesn’t waste a lot of time with setup – it thrusts right to the wedding day of Grace (Weaving) and Alex (Mark O’Brien) – the prodigal son of an extremely rich family, whose billions came from games originally, and now, of course, they can just sit around and watch it all grow. Alex has been away from his family for a while – but he’s back to their massive estate to get married to Grace – an orphan, who grew up in group homes. Of course, her family wonders if she is nothing more than a gold digger – but she genuinely loves Alex. She doesn’t know what marrying into the Le Domas’ family means though. At midnight on her wedding night, she is told she must play a game with the Le Domas’. It seems harmless enough – and if she pulls any card except Hide & Seek, of course, it would have been. But for the Le Domas’ pulling that card means that they must hunt down and kill Grace by dawn, or else they will all die. It’s part of the deal their great grandfather made with someone who is clearly the devil. Grace doesn’t know this of course when she goes off to hide – but it doesn’t take long to figure it out.

 

What follows is a game of cat and mouse that may remind you of Adam Wingard’s wonderful You’re Next – except the survivor girl this time isn’t a survivalist, but just the street smart and resourceful Grace, who isn’t going to go down without a fight. Weaving, who kind of looks like a Margot Robbie clone, has expert comic timing, and really does anchor the whole film with her terrific performance. There also isn’t a member of the Le Domas family – or their staff – that isn’t perfectly cast from the weak willed drunk played by Adam Brody, to the seemingly sympathetic Andie McDowell as the mother, the committed to the rules, until it becomes hard Henry Czerny as the father or Melanie Scrofano as the coked up daughter who tries really hard, but keeps killing the wrong person. I didn’t even mention the portrait of entitled excess of Kristian Bruun as Emile’s husband, or the fiercely committed Charity, played by Elyse Levesque, who married into this family, and dammit, is going to protect it. Poor Mark O’Brien as Alex is comparatively bland to his family – but even that works quite well.  

 

The movie moves quickly at only 95 minutes, and doesn’t really waste much time. The set pieces in the film range from comedic to suspenseful, and back again – and all of them work quite well. I kind of do wish that the film had found some way to become a little deeper than it is – to really dig into the excess of the 1%, and make us watching uncomfortable – or at least question our loyalties, and why we think that way. But that really isn’t what is on this films mind. It knows that in the Trump age, there is more than enough hatred of the ultra-rich – on all sides – and feeds us precisely what we want. A more daring film would do more with it than that. But this film just wants us to have fun – and we do.

 

This is the kind of late summer treat we don’t get very often anymore – a low-budget, but extremely entertaining genre film that doesn’t rely on the special effects of the blockbusters, but instead just gives you a fleet, fast, entertaining ride for 95 minutes. It’s the perfect film for August – when you’re tired of the bloated excess of blockbusters, but may not be quite ready for the weight of Oscar season quite yet. It is an absolute delight.