“Ready or Not” is a called a dark comedy horror thriller film. There are some horrifying scenes and some unlikely comedic moments, so I guess that’s an apt description. It’s written and directed by a bunch of people with long complicated names, but I guess I will forge ahead and mention them anyway. The screenplay is written by Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy. Okay, those two aren’t too bad. But this thing apparently needed two directors, and they are Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. The cast includes Samara Weaving, Andie McDowell, Adam Brody, Mark O’Brien, and Henry Czerny.
Weaving plays a brand new bride marrying into a family who has built their considerable wealth by creating and marketing various board games for lots of years. The Le Domas family success comes with a peculiar cost. After the wedding, a rigid tradition demands a game to be played. Weaving’s character, Grace, happens to draw the card that has them play Hide and Seek, however this ends up being a more lethal version of the game that what is usually played.
There is a fair number of gruesome deaths with exotic weapons of the past. There is a great looking spooky house to run around in. The characters are appropriately weird and fairly compelling. The bride is expectedly gorgeous and fairly resourceful in between moments of terror.
It’s kind of horrific and a little stupid, but still strangely enjoyable for those of us with a taste of the macabre. Grace proves herself to be a scrappy little woman in between her moments of understandable panic. Weaving’s performance is pretty convincing, however that is not surprising since her father is a pretty impressive actor named Hugo Weaving.
There are a few twists and turns that are a little unexpected. Now, there are a few problems in the logic of the script, but that’s to be expected given the genre. I probably enjoyed this film a little more than it deserves, but I am not expecting many awards are going to be thrown its way.
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