Ready or Not
Directed by: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett
Written by: Guy Busick & Ryan Murphy
Starring: Samara Weaving, Adam Brody, Mark O’Brien, Henry Czerny, Andie MacDowell, Melanie Scrofano, Kristian Bruun, Nicky Guadagni, Elyse Levesque, John Ralston, Liam MacDonald, Ethan Tavares, Hanneke Talbot, Celine Tsai, Daniela Barbosa, Etienne Kellici, Andrew Anthony, Elana Dunkelman
Horror/Mystery/Thriller - 95 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 21 Aug 2019
Written by: Guy Busick & Ryan Murphy
Starring: Samara Weaving, Adam Brody, Mark O’Brien, Henry Czerny, Andie MacDowell, Melanie Scrofano, Kristian Bruun, Nicky Guadagni, Elyse Levesque, John Ralston, Liam MacDonald, Ethan Tavares, Hanneke Talbot, Celine Tsai, Daniela Barbosa, Etienne Kellici, Andrew Anthony, Elana Dunkelman
Horror/Mystery/Thriller - 95 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 21 Aug 2019
According to co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, the über-rich do not come by their largesse honestly. They secure financial world domination through the deliberate and even sadistic exploitation of the more vulnerable classes. The poor and disenfranchised must suffer for the .001% to thrive. Various family members may chafe at the means inflicted upon the victims and even feel shades of guilt, but that does not mean they will refuse the benefits of the ends. Peek behind the absurd, farcical, and blood-soaked veneer, and Ready or Not is a study in brute class warfare where the predators do not anticipate the prey to retaliate in kind. The tone is too featherweight for serious horror suspense and the story too episodic for any true chills to take hold through a twisty narrative. Ready or Not is quirky blood and guts – an apéritif to bookend a time when the moment’s entertainment calls for breezy and light rather than filling and contextual.
The directors want you to identify with Grace (Samara Weaving, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri). She’s an outsider to the family and so are we. An orphan with no family or even friends at the wedding, she marries Alex Le Domas (Mark O’Brien, Arrival), the prodigal son and the clan's estranged youngest son. For someone who wants nothing to do with his family, Alex comes off quite accepting and conformist to their demands for a wedding at the palatial mansion and mandatory midnight game session when nuptials should be consummated rather than cremated. The rest of the family are a melange of single-dimensional cartoons who are ready and willing to execute a deadly game of hide and seek with creaky 19th-century weapons with put-off 21st century attitudes.
The directors want you to identify with Grace (Samara Weaving, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri). She’s an outsider to the family and so are we. An orphan with no family or even friends at the wedding, she marries Alex Le Domas (Mark O’Brien, Arrival), the prodigal son and the clan's estranged youngest son. For someone who wants nothing to do with his family, Alex comes off quite accepting and conformist to their demands for a wedding at the palatial mansion and mandatory midnight game session when nuptials should be consummated rather than cremated. The rest of the family are a melange of single-dimensional cartoons who are ready and willing to execute a deadly game of hide and seek with creaky 19th-century weapons with put-off 21st century attitudes.
Before she is aware of the ground rules, Grace pouts to Alex that her new father-in-law (Henry Czerny) hates her. Rather than console his new bride with platitudes, Alex responds, “Who cares what they think, they’ll horrible people.” They all know it. Alex’s older brother, Daniel (Adam Brody, Shazam!), broods over the family’s wretchedness, but rather than confront the twisted roots of evil, he would rather maintain an alcoholic buzz and ignore the proceedings. The audience is only a bit more in on the “game” than Grace. We are just as in the dark when Alex swears he told her nothing about her true purpose. “If I told you, you would have left!” he whines to Grace when she finally figures out this is no game, this is life and death…and it’s her death they’re after!
The directors drop an unsubtle visual clue to the audience that Grace is not going to take this nonsense lying down - she’s wearing Chucks! This means Grace is a badass. She can strip off part of her wedding gown to dress a wound. She can run, punch, scrape, claw, and choke with the best of them. Much of the hour long chase scenes steadily escalate the tiers of torture porn. Arrow and nail impalements, visceral close-ups of puncture wounds and knife slices, boiling water to the face, bones cracking, and enough blood to fill a swimming pool are not necessarily here to shock, but more to make us groan and chuckle. Since we all know Grace is in for it, the directors play with their creative choices to see which ridiculous situation they can throw Grace into now.
Samara Weaving is fun to watch skitter around the house and grounds and she makes the most of her scream time and shriek skills. The premise by Guy Busick and Ryan Murphy is intriguing and will make you lean forward wanting to know who will get it next and by what exaggerated method they will meet their gruesome climax. There were two ways to make Ready or Not, campy or dour, and it’s hard to say which method would make the better film, but the camp is more amusing than not. The family’s faces show they recognize how ridiculous all of this is, but traditions must be upheld. You don’t expect them to actually work for a living do you? Because as the audience is about to find out, the rich are different.
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