Ready or Not is a freaking blast and easily one of my favorite movies of the year. That’s especially impressive considering that this kind of thing is hard to pull off. This is a thriller/comedy and that is a tough balance to strike; usually it devolves into just being a comedy with thriller elements. This walks that fine line perfectly. Ready or Not made me laugh out loud on several occasions, but also has moments of genuine suspense and more blood than most straight horror movies that I see nowadays. This is the kind of thing that usually becomes a cult classic and that puts it right up my alley.
The setup is something like a cross between The Purge and Clue. Grace is marrying into an insanely rich family that built their fortune on board games. It what she initially thinks is just a weird family quirk, the family insists that they play a game on her wedding night as a sort of right of passage into the family. Unfortunately for her, she selects a game of hide-and-seek and the family takes this shit damn seriously. Armed with guns, crossbows and axes, the family hunts her throughout the family mansion, convinced that they will all be struck dead if they don’t ritualistically kill her by dawn.
First of all, that’s a fucking awesome premise. Second, this movie really embraces the insanity of it and intertwines the bloodshed and the humor. The family may be willing to happily go through with this hunt, but they are also hilariously inept with weapons. The result is a bunch of unintentional deaths as the family unintentional kills each other and the help in hilariously graphic ways. And with practical effects, too. Maybe I’m just sentimental, but it warms my heart to see actual fake blood when a maid gets shot in the face with a crossbow. It really is like watching an R-rated version of Clue, right down to the zany, old-timey characters. I’m sure that papers will be written about the socioeconomic themes of this movie, with the upper-class murdering the poor rather than allowing them to join their ranks. You may find value in all of those thematic underpinnings, but I don’t really give a shit. This movie is just fun.
Speaking of Clue, this movie also has great ambiance and is beautifully-shot. I read this in another review and I’m stealing the comparison, but it looks like an old Universal horror movie with the gothic mansion and great use of lighting to give the whole place a feeling of foreboding. It feels like an old-fashioned whodunit, like an Agatha Christie novel crossed with an old Tarantino film. I’m a sucker for that kind of stuff and this pulls of that old-fashioned mystery setting wonderfully.
The performances are also excellent. This is basically a character-driven film and would be a chore to sit through if the cast wasn’t so strong. Fortunately, lead actress Samara Weaving absolutely owns this thing. Her role requires her to earn the audience’s sympathy while also injecting the film with humor and it’s tough to be believably light-hearted when your in-laws are trying to murder your ass. I don’t recognize Weaving (though IMDB says she was in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which I did see), but I hope to see more of her in the future. The rest of the cast is also excellent, but I need to give special mention to Andie MacDowell. I always liked her and feel like I haven’t seen her in anything in freaking forever. Good to see her again.
Also, no spoilers, but the end of this movie is fucking brilliant. I literally laughed out loud. Not fake, internet laughing out loud. I legit laughed because I absolutely did not see that shit coming. I really liked this movie going into that, but the ending made me fucking love it.
Of course, since I loved this movie, it tanked at the box office. If it’s still playing near you, I highly recommend checking this out, especially if you like old-school murder mysteries and blends of horror and comedy.
Image By: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7b/Ready_or_Not_2019_film_poster.jpg
