Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett
Ready or Not is a 2019 horror thriller which switches from action and thrills to dark humour and spoof-like comedy. It follows the story of Grace and Alex - two newlyweds who get married at the wealthy estate of Alex’s parents, the Le Domase’s, and we soon learn that there is a twisted reason for their successful gaming empire.
On the night of their wedding Grace must play a traditional card game with the Le Domas family as she is a new member and unfortunately, she pulls the hide and seek card. This means the upper class Le Domas family must hunt and kill the new bride before sunset otherwise terrible consequences will unfold. This is obviously utterly devastating to Grace as she must fight for her life completely unprepared and her new husband, Alex (Mark O’Brien) is hard to accept as a good guy in this situation as he did bring her into this whole mess.
Samara Weaving portrays Grace and does an excellent job as the naive and innocent newlywed. Something I liked about this movie was how Grace wasn’t the typical movie protagonist who automatically knows how to do everything with skill, she’s normal and struggles multiple times and in a few situations she gets out because of pure luck. This makes her likeable and also relatable to us as an audience and refreshing to see.
The main themes explored in Ready or Not are evil vs innocence and rich vs poor. Grace is an innocent girl with no family and without anywhere near the amount of money the Le Domas have. The poor and innocent is the one we are rooting for and we relate to whereas the filthy evil rich are displayed as selfish and greedy, even selling their souls to the devil. It can be seen as a satirical look at the wealthy and how far they will go to succeed. It also blends tones of dark comedy in tense moments, which I personally enjoyed, and it constantly kept me entertained, being described by critics as a “fresh take on the slasher genre”.
Multiple genres are used and they switch up in a clever way; it starts as mysterious as we get a brief history of the family but no conclusive answers which are slowly revealed throughout. It’s also got classic horror elements, such as a few jump scares followed by moments of comical relief, as well as being very gory with lots of blood.
The characters are also written and portrayed well by notable actors including Adam Brody as Alex’s brother Daniel who can be seen as one of the only redeemable characters due to Brody's portrayal. Andie MacDowell and Henry Czerny also star as the patriarchs of the family.
If you are looking for a good modern horror comedy film to watch and enjoy thrills and violence as well as watching a crazy family who worship the devil and hunt down their son’s new bride then this is the film you should watch next.
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