Ready Or Not review

Ready Or Not

Release Date – 27th September, Run-time – 94 mins, Cert – 18, Directors – Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett

On the night after her wedding a young woman (Samara Weaving) finds herself in a dangerous game of hide and seek with the twisted, murderous traditions of her new husband’s (Mark O’Brien) family.

Grace (Samara Weaving) struggles to connect with her new husband’s (Mark O’Brien) family, and it seems that they struggle to do so with her. Even on her wedding day she feels that they’re still trying to figure her out, giving the reason of being married after 18 months together instead of three years as is tradition with the Le Domas family. A family who themselves are deeply rooted in many decades of tradition – tightly held within their highly valuable board game empire. One specific tradition stating that when someone marries into the family they must play a game with all other members. However, one card is said to not be the standard game that the words written on it display. Grace finds herself picking ‘Hide And Seek’, a game the family haven’t played for over 30 years.

While Grace believes the game to be perfectly innocent as she hides the Le Domas family arm themselves with all forms of weaponry, from guns to crossbows – whether they know how to use them all not – holding the belief that if they don’t kill the bride by dawn there will be disastrous consequences for themselves. Grace soon finds herself in a fight for her life, trapped within the confines of the home in a high stakes, and even more highly abnormal, game of hide and seek.

The concept might seem like one of the more outlandish premises for a horror feature, however where Ready Or Not succeeds is when it comes to its use of dark humour. Woven throughout the piece the film almost works more as a dark comedy than something in the horror vein; the main source of horror coming from the almost all-out intense gore the film has, validating its 18 rating. But, the film never seems to go too far with the gore, always managing to keep up with the premise and the stakes at hand, the amount of gore increasing at a similar rate to the absurdity of the piece.

Ready Or Not is a film that knows how ridiculous it becomes, and as the absurdity increases so does the enjoyment factor. As the film begins to tackle the likes of YouTube tutorials on how to use a crossbow and enraged singing butlers it shifts from feeling like a generic, laid back horror to an effective and enjoyable dark comedy – playing to its strengths as the narrative progresses.

Occasionally the film threatens to repeat itself, sometimes only hanging on the often loose idea of its premise; if it was any longer than the almost 90 minute run-time that it holds then this issue would likely be more prominent and frequent. But, what gets it through is not only the way that directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett refuse to hold back on scale and detail, packing a truly unique punch of an ending, but also the rapid fire sense in which the final stages of the game unfold. While it might take a while to get going, gradually building up exposition, once things get started they begin to equally pick up creating an entertainingly gory game for spectators.

Taking a while to get started once things do get going Ready Or Not proves to be an uniquely entertaining blood-soaked feature where the more absurd it gets the more enjoyable it becomes.
*** <– Three Stars