Ready or Not

Grace has just got married and she realises it wasn't a good idea. Her new in-laws want to play hide-and-seek with her. If they don't find her by morning, she wins. If they find her, she'll probably die in a cruel ritual. It'll be fun. Ready or Not is a blackly humorous horror film that alternates fairly brutal scenes with a lot of gritty humour, but also some solidly suspenseful moments. It has a great main character, and the only problem in the end is that they didn't step it up a notch. As a whole, though, it's pretty good. (2019-08-27)

I thought back to Sam Raimi's films, the good ones that is, and I couldn't help but marvel at how much fun I was having. The bloody black-humor hide-and-seek can definitely surprise and thrill, and if it weren't for a few slightly weaker and more predictable parts (the escape into the woods), I wouldn't have much to complain about. Apart from Samara Weaving (unlike in Netflix's The Babysitter, she's the heroine this time around, and it occurs to me that the two films have a lot in common and would make an ideal program for an evening) and the other admittedly lesser known but great (to watch) actors, I have to single out Brian Tyler's music, which makes for just the right atmosphere at just the right moments. The scene of the ritual and the one after it are without exaggeration unforgettable. (2019-09-03)

When two people do the same thing, the results of their efforts will differ depending on their respective levels of talent and life experience. Thus, while Ready or Not would like to be another Get Out, as the promotional materials emphatically make clear, it can never have that film’s sting. The grievances of one ethnic group and the phantasmagorical delusions of the privileged social class are not revealed here. Rather, only a group of well-to-do people make fun of rich people within the limits of the genre. Thanks to that, Ready or Not works great as arelief valve for the frustrated workers of our capitalist reality, but it characteristically does not open up its subject in any way or contain any overlap into everyday reality. Above all, however, it does not open anyone’s eyes. It’s just an amusing episodic film in which, instead of the monstrosity in the human heart or the gears of the predatory system, we can only see our own need to simply find festive relief in a properly explicit lynching. (2020-01-05)

A decent, inventive slasher, which turns an ordinary family dinner into something you won’t forget easily. Moreover with the lead role of the bride played by the fair Samara Weaving, who has witchcraft, fear and mysteriousness already in her name. Even though nothing that happens in the film is actually her fault. (2020-02-28)

Since I’m not rich yet, I’ve no problem sympathising with this peculiar fairytale. An entertainingly lively spin on the concept of the human hunt that turns into a morbid carnage in the popular setting of a big baroque mansion. Although it grinds at times with the cheap way it delays the climax and the helplessness of the hunters associated to it, the viewer can always cling to the brilliant, badass main character (Samara Weaving was really born for roles like this), and in the ending rely on an unpredictable wave of foreshadowing, thanks to which the film can be taken as perverted and openly trashy fun in A-movie clothes. I’d love to see more brainwashers like this in the cinema, and all of them could be with Samara. 75% (2019-09-16)