"Our Initiate Then Has The Privilege Of Drawing The Card, And Mr. Le Bail Will Tell Us Which Game To Play..."
Directed by the filmmaking duo of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, horror aficionado's responsible so far for part of the rather underrated, V/H/S, and the critically massacred, Devil's Due, Ready or Not is the second big-screen end-of-year horror after It: Chapter Two designed to pull audiences out of the rain and into the confines of a nicely heated cinema screen with the promise of B-movie horror tropes and bucket loads of exploitation violence. Brought to the big screen by Walt Disney of all studios, Ready or Not is most definitely not a film for the kids, an ultra-violent, overly knowing black comedy which conforms to the well worn tropes of exploitation B-movies as it follows a simple yet entertaining central idea to satisfy both genre fans and the lay cinema audience who pay good money to see cheap, blood ridden nonsense, and whilst the final project may not be anything particularly original or memorable, Ready or Not is a more than functional, thoroughly enjoyable big budget splatter horror with a great central performance from the film's leading lady.
Whilst the movie's supporting trailer pretty much gives away a huge majority of the central plot, Ready or Not follows Samara Weaving (Three Billboards), niece of Hugo Weaving of The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix fame, as Grace, whose marriage to Mark O'Brien's (Bad Times at the El Royale) Alex Le Domas brings her closer to the ridiculously wealthy Le Domas empire, whose generations-long tradition of the new family member being forced to play a particular game at midnight leads her to engage in a fight for survival within the confines of their stately home. Cue stupendously silly levels of overripe violence and more forced comedic punch lines than you would might expect, Ready or Not is a strange blend of Escape Room, The Cabin in the Woods and Adam Wingard's criminally underrated, You're Next, and whilst sometimes the comedic elements do indeed topple the slasher inflicted side of the piece, Weaving's dedicated performance as a newly crowned scream queen allows you to enjoy the crazy path her character walks, even if it is incredibly cliched and wholly unsurprising. For a thoroughly entertaining Friday night slice of horror nonsense, Ready or Not goes down nicely with a pizza and a pint but is undoubtedly quickly forgettable and not interesting enough to be placed in the same category as the sort of films it clearly evokes.
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