Ready or Not

By: Maggie Stankiewicz

Have you ever found yourself meditating on how dire a situation must become before you cheer someone on for punching a child in the face? Or maybe you’ve chastised yourself for watching a friend trip and fall, only to cackle at a casual disembowelment moments later. If you haven’t, Ready or Not will send you spiraling into a devilishly decadent existential crisis. Brought to the big screen by writers Guy Busick and Ryan Murphy, and directed by horror greats Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, Ready or Not is the most fun you’ll have at the movies all year, even if you need to slow down on the popcorn to better digest the bloody kills.

The film follows Grace (Samara Weaving) through a rather turbulent wedding night, as she is initiated into her husband Alex’s (Mark O’Brien) wealthy and slightly unconventional family. Alex hails from the Le Domas gaming dominion, and as such his family has some rather puzzling traditions when it comes to embracing a new family member. Among these traditions is requiring their newlyweds to play a game of chance, drawing a card that determines the game of the evening. Desperate to please her new family, Grace obliges and pulls the fabled Hide-and-Seek card. Without divulging their sinister rules, the Le Domas family allows Grace 100-second head start before they begin their search for her. Little does Grace know that in less than two minutes from the game’s start – that her life is in danger.

Fast-paced and never stagnant, Ready or Not perfectly utilizes its dynamic cast. Samara Weaving charms audiences and in-laws alike (you know, despite the attempted homicide). Adam Brody and Mark O’Brien dazzle as brooding and sometimes battling brothers. Nicky Guadagni is exquisitely unhinged as the widowed Aunt Heline. Andi MacDowell and Henry Czerny chill as a killer power couple and Kristian Bruun is the perfect pushover to Melanie Scrofano’s manic pixie nightmare girl. For all their flaws, the Le Domas family is funny in their fury and oftentimes ridiculous in their desperation to kill a former foster child just looking for a family to call her own.

The pacing and comedic delivery of the film could easily be lost among the rich-are-evil social commentary, but the cast knows exactly what to do with their material and that makes all the difference. Ready or Not does a great job at communicating humanity’s shared sense of desperation while drawing the line in the sand between classes. Grace’s humble beginnings and purity transforms into a ruthless and desperate attempt at survival, while her rich, larger than life in-laws are desperate to maintain their lavish lifestyle (beyond their own will to live). The wicked game of cat-and-mouse is something far more hypnotizing than anything Tom and Jerry could be – full of gore, guts and just a hint of Satan.

If you’re fully prepared to surrender yourself to the dark arts and laugh at that which you never thought comedic, then you are in fact ready for Ready or Not. You will clap. You will laugh. You will flinch and you might cover your eyes. It’s everything a dark comedy thriller should be and even a little bit of what it shouldn’t be. If that’s not reason enough for you to run to the theater, then at the very least you can take away this crumb of sage wisdom: if your spouse-to-be warns you that his family is traditional…run. Your life very well may depend on it.