Ready or Not – Review

Ready or Not

Ready or Not review; horror film, comedy, hide and seekReady or Not

Directed by: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett

Runtime: 95 minutes

I’m a self-proclaimed coward when it comes to all things scary. Spiders, heights, the slow but imminent demise of our planet, snakes—you name it. So when I saw the trailer for Ready or Not, I thought it could be a bit more palatable, since it promised to mix in some comedy to help alleviate the spooks of a scary movie. I wasn’t huddled in the foetal position by the film’s conclusion, so I guess it worked?

Ready or Not follows Grace on her wedding day as she’s about to marry into the prestigious Le Domas family, whose dynasty was founded through the creation of board and card games. In line with this, the Le Domas family has a very important tradition: on the night of a wedding, they must play a game with the new family member. They don’t know which game; it’s decided by an inconspicuous and definitely not evil black box. Grace draws a card from the box, and it’s revealed they’re playing Hide and Seek. Damn it, I was hoping for Yu-Gi-Oh! To Grace’s surprise this version of Hide and Seek involves the whole family trying to find and kill her before sunrise. And thus begins our journey of accidental murders, family drama and ritualistic sacrifices.

I actually really like this setup; it feels like a promising and creative idea for a film. This is what initially got me sitting in the cinema after all. So it did its job, that’s for sure. You can tell right off the bat that many tables have been flipped at Monopoly night, because they all despise each other. The family’s dynamic is the most interesting part of the film for me. You’d think that the entire family would work together to find and kill the bride, but instead you have a mixed bag of opinions. Some people are a bit too enthusiastic about it to be considered normal. Others have no idea what they’ve gotten themselves into, so they’re kind of just going with the flow of it. Grace’s new husband, Alex, is obviously trying to stop the game altogether. And then you have Alex’s brother, Daniel, who easily has the most entertaining journey through the film. He goes back and forth between sticking with the family’s tradition—even though he knows it’s awful—and following his own moral compass to let Grace live. Watching an incredibly dysfunctional family self-destruct on screen is surprisingly satisfying. Morals and personalities clash together, usually in a bloody, bone-crunching mess.

Admittedly I didn’t actually find Ready or Not that scary. Not that this is a necessarily a bad thing, especially for a wuss like myself, but it’s worth mentioning. They keep the horror segments fairly short and there are only a handful of them to begin with. Many of the deaths and gory scenes are mostly played for humour. Ready or Not feels more like an adventure movie with some comedy and a little sprinkling of horror. Speaking of the comedy, the film was kind of funny? It seemed like most of the funnier jokes were actually in the trailer, so when I saw them again onscreen they landed flat. Adam Brody as Daniel managed to get some snickers and chuckles out of me, though. It felt like he improvised some of his lines by just adding in some quick quips and nice observational humour, which was enjoyable.

So surprisingly, I was actually enjoying my time with Ready or Not. Then the ending came, and it is literally the worst thing I’ve seen on screen in a very long time. It’s insanely moronic and lazy. I almost feel like I got conned out of a proper ending. If I’m being honest though, there are many plot points during the film that also feel stupid and contrived—you could argue this is a horror trope in itself. But this ending single-handedly flipped my opinion of this movie. It’s absolutely awful.

Ready or Not definitely focuses more on the journey, rather than the destination. And while the journey has many speed bumps and no real twists or turns, there’s some enjoyment to be had on this ride. If you’re like me and you can’t handle the kooky spooks, con your friends into seeing Ready or Not with you this Halloween season. They may be disappointed by the lack of scares, but you’ll come out happy with the knowledge that your friends will never go see a scary movie with you ever again.

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