Ready Or Not Review
Never knowing her own family, Grace (Samara Weaving) is excited, even anxious at becoming a part of the La Domas board game dynasty by marrying youngest son Alex (Mark O'Brien). After a lavish wedding, the newlyweds spend their honeymoon at the La Domas family mansion. As midnight comes, per family tradition, new family member Grace must play a game with the other relatives also staying the night at the mansion. Picking from a mysterious card box, the game is "Hide and Seek" with the twist being that if Grace is caught, the La Domas will kill her in a dark ritual. But if she survives the night, the La Domas family may be doomed.
"The Most Dangerous Game" is a short story written by Richard Connell in 1924. It introduced the idea of humans hunting other humans for sport. Countless movies and stories throughout the decades have either elaborated (Hunger Games), parodied (The Pest), and/or continued the concept. The axiom is true, it's all been done before. Execution of repeated premises and tropes are how one separates the good from the bad in terms of storytelling. I firmly count Ready Or Not as one of the best "Most Dangerous Game" type of films in recent memory.
Ready Or Not presents a darkly comedic, gothic, future cult classic horror film with a quirky, but demented cast of characters. There's a kind of dark, relatable humor in seeing this family interacting together with clashing personalities that are picked up on right away. This brother-in-law doesn't like this sister-in-law, this aunt can't stand this nephew by marriage, husbands and wives bicker. Were it not a wedding bringing them all together, one could assume these same arguments occur every Thanksgiving about whether or not the cranberry sauce is fresh or canned.
Having previously seen her performance in Netflix's horror-comedy romp "The Babysitter" (which I highly recommend), Samara Weaving is quickly making a name for herself as not only a modern-day Scream Queen, but an actress to look out for in the coming years. Her performance runs the gamut of emotions for someone in such an absurd and terrifying situation. From catatonic shock to just being flat-out done with everything, I firmly believed Weaving's performance from beginning to end.
The gothic aesthetic to the La Domas mansion gives it a chilling atmosphere. Within its opulent halls are secret passageways, service entrances, resplendent fields of green as well as a security lockdown with surveillance cameras. The dim creepy interior lighting lent itself to the archaic nature of the game as well as the backstory and the rules of said game. The production design of the mansion itself made it also feel compact despite its immensity, providing a lot of nice tension for Grace trying to flee her pursuers.
There are some pretty grisly imagery to watch out for and the directors of the film pull no punches, in some cases, literally. People are severely wounded, some meet slow, gruesome ends. A lot of it was done with a darkly humorous tone, in particular, when some of the servants meet their untimely demise via an accidental shooting. It also shows that despite thinking of their deceased employees as human beings, the La Domas ultimately only care about themselves and their own survival.
Speaking of the La Domas family, it'd be real easy to see the surface level criticism about rich people's behavior towards those not as well off and call it a day. They do display a willingness to do whatever it takes to achieve their goal, but the underlying desperation of needing to sacrifice Grace for the continued existence gives them an unexpected humanity. One of them laments that their family has to go through with this, saying "We all deserve to die." That statement is rebutted with "My children don't deserve to die." The family members, while each given easily recognizable traits (Ditz, drunk, gold-digger, etc;) they also show that they aren't kill-crazy psychopaths. That being said, their actions are inexcusable, are rightly framed in the narrative as horrific and morally wrong.
Overall, Ready or Not is a darkly humorous, tremendously acted horror comedy romp with heart, intensity and blood to spare. I won't spoil the finale, but it does provide a suitably satisfying conclusion and a bloody good time for horror fans. And I never thought I'd say this, but Andie MacDowell should play more villains. She is incredibly effective and easy to despise as the matriarch of the family.
"The Most Dangerous Game" is a short story written by Richard Connell in 1924. It introduced the idea of humans hunting other humans for sport. Countless movies and stories throughout the decades have either elaborated (Hunger Games), parodied (The Pest), and/or continued the concept. The axiom is true, it's all been done before. Execution of repeated premises and tropes are how one separates the good from the bad in terms of storytelling. I firmly count Ready Or Not as one of the best "Most Dangerous Game" type of films in recent memory.
Ready Or Not presents a darkly comedic, gothic, future cult classic horror film with a quirky, but demented cast of characters. There's a kind of dark, relatable humor in seeing this family interacting together with clashing personalities that are picked up on right away. This brother-in-law doesn't like this sister-in-law, this aunt can't stand this nephew by marriage, husbands and wives bicker. Were it not a wedding bringing them all together, one could assume these same arguments occur every Thanksgiving about whether or not the cranberry sauce is fresh or canned.
Having previously seen her performance in Netflix's horror-comedy romp "The Babysitter" (which I highly recommend), Samara Weaving is quickly making a name for herself as not only a modern-day Scream Queen, but an actress to look out for in the coming years. Her performance runs the gamut of emotions for someone in such an absurd and terrifying situation. From catatonic shock to just being flat-out done with everything, I firmly believed Weaving's performance from beginning to end.
The gothic aesthetic to the La Domas mansion gives it a chilling atmosphere. Within its opulent halls are secret passageways, service entrances, resplendent fields of green as well as a security lockdown with surveillance cameras. The dim creepy interior lighting lent itself to the archaic nature of the game as well as the backstory and the rules of said game. The production design of the mansion itself made it also feel compact despite its immensity, providing a lot of nice tension for Grace trying to flee her pursuers.
There are some pretty grisly imagery to watch out for and the directors of the film pull no punches, in some cases, literally. People are severely wounded, some meet slow, gruesome ends. A lot of it was done with a darkly humorous tone, in particular, when some of the servants meet their untimely demise via an accidental shooting. It also shows that despite thinking of their deceased employees as human beings, the La Domas ultimately only care about themselves and their own survival.
Speaking of the La Domas family, it'd be real easy to see the surface level criticism about rich people's behavior towards those not as well off and call it a day. They do display a willingness to do whatever it takes to achieve their goal, but the underlying desperation of needing to sacrifice Grace for the continued existence gives them an unexpected humanity. One of them laments that their family has to go through with this, saying "We all deserve to die." That statement is rebutted with "My children don't deserve to die." The family members, while each given easily recognizable traits (Ditz, drunk, gold-digger, etc;) they also show that they aren't kill-crazy psychopaths. That being said, their actions are inexcusable, are rightly framed in the narrative as horrific and morally wrong.
Overall, Ready or Not is a darkly humorous, tremendously acted horror comedy romp with heart, intensity and blood to spare. I won't spoil the finale, but it does provide a suitably satisfying conclusion and a bloody good time for horror fans. And I never thought I'd say this, but Andie MacDowell should play more villains. She is incredibly effective and easy to despise as the matriarch of the family.
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