I must confess, I’ve dabbled in a bit of Home & Away. I probably watched it religiously until I was around 16, and I’ve dropped in and out of it for the past twelve years. The star of Ready or Not, Samara Weaving, played Indi on Home & Away. She started off as the typical blonde damsel but, as time went on, she got an increasing chance to show off her funnier side. Last year she popped up in the huge film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and starred in that Netflix movie, The Babysitter, which I never saw. Due to her Australian background call me bias, but Samara Weaving is outstanding in Ready or Not, and is the best part of the film. She has to show a large range, be it charming to funny, horrified and earnest. At times, she even has to keep up her terrified state while her co-actors are calmly contemplating. It’s good to see her dry wit has translated in an American accent. And she’s never been afraid of a laugh-snort.
Ready or Not is directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and is about a young woman marrying into an extremely wealthy family. After the wedding at her in-law’s historic mansion, she is told at midnight she must play a game, as per old family tradition. The game is selected at random, but if she chooses the wrong game, it may result in her running for her life.
This movie blends horror and comedy. In some moments the tones clash, but in others they work really well – like is the case when the brother-in-law, played by Adam Brody, discovers Grace, Samara Weaving, hiding in the study. Unlike some murderous gore horror, this movie excels for having well thought out antagonists, mostly. Andie MacDowell has a few moments of genuine connection with Grace before becoming a murderous psychopath, as the groom’s mother. Henry Czerny is perfectly cast as the groom’s father. The actress who plays the Aunt, Nicky Guadagni, is brilliantly macabre. The movie plays up that the family are not really murderers for laughs; the fact that they are hunting this girl is only one unlucky occurrence. All the while, Grace is running through the estate frantically trying not to get shot. Why anyone would allow their beloved to marry into this family is beyond me; the movie tries to alleviate that concern by saying the groom felt his intended would leave him if he didn’t propose, but hey, so be it. The movie recognises that there’s a bit of work that needs to be done to make the concept believable and keep the groom sympathetic, and it does an okay job.
The movie offers some great tension, more so than jump-scares, and it also has one of the best uses of Chekhov’s gun I might have ever seen; before Grace is to climb out of this death pit, we see a nail sticking out of the top landing. She’s already got a hole in her hand from where she’s been shot. The movie telegraphs a mile off that this poor girl is about to have an incident involving a nail and her hand… and it doesn’t make it any less unnerving.
I spent the majority of the movie thinking how much better it could be with a few changes. I think it might’ve been better if we were told that all the initiation rituals for in-laws involved death in some way. The sister’s husband got off easy if all he had to do was play Old Maid. Why has the box chosen Grace to be unlucky? Maybe the ‘alcoholic brother who’s always trying to hit on’ Grace, as Grace describes Adam Brody’s character in the beginning of the film, could have been more alcoholic – maybe the family could have been more stilted from the curse that has bogged down their family. Brody’s character could have expressed to Grace that he is on his third marriage, because his previous two wives didn’t make it. If the other in-law’s initiation rituals were also dramatic, then sequels baby! (Or prequels rather, considering how bloody Ready or Not turns out in the end). Moreover, I think it would help give credibility as to why the in-laws of the family are more than willing to go along with the game if there was once a chance that they could have been murdered too. Adam Brody’s wife character could show some signs of PTSD, whereby she is going along with hunting Grace to try to make sense of what has previously happened to her. I like more and more that the sister’s husband was texting and sitting on the toilet on his phone, because he is detached from the ritual, just thinking that his wife’s family is nuts, and “whadd’ya-gonna-do?”
Now, for the in-laws to have also faced death and survived would mean that there has to be a way for Grace to win and be accepted by the family. What if the game wasn’t Hide and Seek but Chasey, and Grace is safe if she can get outside the property walls? Instead of having the sequence in the forest be outside the property walls, change it to inside the estate; the grounds being so big because the wealthy family is wealthy.
I think the movie could have focused up on saying something substantial about what it’s like for a young woman to enter into a new family too. Ready or Not has a great collection of believable family types – a brother-in-law that disrespects the bride by objectifying her. A father-in-law that values a prestigious coupling over his family’s happiness. A matriarchal figure that outwardly despises the new girl, in the aunt-in-law. A dysfunctional sister-in-law and her grating husband. A snobby sister-in-law who’s married into the family for the money. And a caring mother-in-law that you can envision a future with. I think the movie sets up these characters very well, but doesn’t play along with them for long enough. As soon as the murder pact forms, the soul of the story becomes about if the family curse is real. I really feel like Ready or Not had the bones to be in the same ilk as Get Out, as a horror movie that is acclaimed based upon the perspective and values of its subjects and uses horror as a framing device. Ready or Not could have highlighted how awkward it can be for a young woman to marry into a family and live up to their expectations. Instead, I think the movie values gore and tracking the sister’s drug escalation more than anything else. I think it overplays the comedic elements when the movie could have been more powerful if it was dramatic.
Look, just because I want to rewrite Ready of Not doesn’t mean it’s not a damn fine watch. It reminds me of The Purge; a movie with a fantastic premise that I wished would get more defined in additional projects. I hope this gets a following and I want to see more Samara Weaving. I also hope that people embrace the bride’s costume for Halloween parties of the future – orange Vans, tattered wedding dress, fake shells and a shotgun would be such a stunning look. Let it be the next craze!
3.5
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