READY OR NOT : Tuesday 29th October 2019

'READY OR NOT' which I saw earlier this week, is an MA15+ rated American comedy thriller horror offering Directed by the pairing of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who after a string of short films, Directed this their only second feature film following 2014's horror thriller 'Devil's Due'. The film was released in the US in late August following its World Premier screening at Montreal's Fantasia International Film Festival in late July, has received generally positive Reviews and has so far grossed US$56M off the back of a US$6M production budget. Critics have in particular, praised Samara Weaving's performance in the lead role, and the combination of thrills and humour which I can attest to judging by the several laugh out loud moments coming form the gathered audience on the evening of my viewing.

The film opens with two young lads chasing through the corridors of a huge house at night - Alex Le Domas (Chase Churchill) and his brother Daniel (Etienne Kellici), who come to a halt when they bear witness to the killing of a man named Charles who has just married their Aunt Helene. Fast forward thirty years, and Alex (Mark O'Brien) who has been estranged from his family for many years now - returns to the Le Domas estate to marry a young woman named Grace (Samara Weaving) who seems to have a questionable past that is not entirely to the liking of the super wealthy Le Domas family. While he is hesitant to be back, Grace is reassuring and eager to become part of his family, something she never really had growing up having been past around from foster home to foster home.

Post ceremony, and after the guests have departed, Grace is told by Alex of a generations long tradition of playing a game at midnight on the wedding night with each new addition to the family. Putting a new spin on her plans for her wedding night, Grace reluctantly has little alternative but to join the family initiation custom and meets with the rest of the in-laws. Participating in the tradition with Grace are Alex, his alcoholic brother Daniel (Adam Brody), their father Tony (Henry Czerny), their mother Becky (Andie MacDowell), Daniel's snobbish wife Charity (Elyse Levesque), Alex's drug-addled sister Emilie (Melanie Scrofano), Emilie's whining husband Fitch (Kristian Bruun), and the constantly sombre Helene (Nicky Guadagni), who is Tony's older sister.

Tony states for the gathered guests in time honoured tradition, that Grace must participate in a game at midnight where she is required to draw a card from a mysterious wooden box and play the game written on the card to become a fully fledged family member. Tony also tells the history of his Great-Grandfather Victor Le Domas who made a deal with a man named Mr. Le Bail where Le Bail would help create the Le Domas fortune if the Le Domas family established the tradition, which they have now done so for decades, hence their amassed family wealth. Grace draws from the box a card that reads 'hide and seek'. 

Believing the game to be harmless, Grace leaves to hide somewhere in the now locked down family mansion while the Le Domas family, excluding Alex who has chosen to sit it out, arm themselves with antique weapons to hunt her down, and begin the countdown from 100. Grace hides in a dumb waiter, for what seems like an eternity and eventually gets jack of that notion and steps out, ripping her wedding gown in the process. Emile passes by and Grace hides out of sight only to be grabbed from behind by her new husband. They both hide in their bedroom and the pair witness Emilie accidentally kill one of the estate's maids by shooting her in the head with a shotgun. The rest of the family arrive in the room to see the carnage and carry off the corpse to dispose of it later. Alex explains that hide and seek is the only game from the box that would prompt the Le Domas family to try to kill Grace, and he didn't tell her believing the odds of which were unlikely. The Le Domas family believes that if they fail to kill Grace before dawn, they will all die as agreed decades previously by Victor Le Domas and Mr. Le Bail.

Grace is overwhelmed, understandably anxious and furious at Alex for having not told her about the ritual for fear that she would leave him. Against his family's wishes, Alex promises to Grace that he will help her escape the estate. He then heads to the house's security room after instructing her to go to the exit at the kitchen. En route she returns to the games room where it all began and arms herself with an antique looking shotgun and an ammunition belt. While looking for the exit, Grace returns to the dumb waiter and encounters a second maid who has hidden therein, and who is crushed to death when Grace activates the mechanical dumbwaiter door system to silence her. Daniel who, like Alex, hates the culture within his own family, discovers her in the study. Grace begs him for assistance, but he sadly states that he has no option but to alert the others and grants her a ten second head start to run. Alex deactivates the estate's security cameras and unlocks the doors of the house. However, he is discovered by Tony and Daniel who capture and restrain him for his betrayal. Grace manages to escape the house after eluding the family's Butler Stevens (John Ralston) by scalding his face with a freshly brewed pot of piping hot tea.

The family members regroup and can't believe their difficulty in capturing Grace, but remind each other of the urgency to find her before sun up. During this discussion, a third maid is accidentally killed by Emilie with a crossbow through the head. Stevens informs the family that Grace has left the house through the now deactivated doors, but promises to go find her. Grace takes refuge in the barn within the grounds of the estate, but after being shot in the hand by Emilie's young son Georgie (Liam MacDonald), and knocking him out cold with a fierce punch to the head falls backwards into the 'goat pit' where the family hid the remains of its previous victims. She manages to clamber out but not before putting her already injured hand through the protruding nail in the lip of the goat pit. She makes a dash for the wrought iron fence surrounding the property and further injures her back while gingerly squeezing through a hole in the fence in an attempt to flag down a passing car.

After a failed attempt by Stevens to capture Grace in which she incapacitated him briefly, she escapes in one of the family vehicles only for it to be remotely disabled because it had been reported as being stolen. This gives Stevens the opportunity to catch up with the now stranded Grace and tranquillise her. While Stevens drives her back to the household, Grace comes round and violently kicking him from behind causes him to crash the car, so killing him. Climbing out of the upturned vehicle and still bound to the legs and arms, Grace is discovered by Daniel who, knowing that Tony is secretly watching, knocks her out again and recaptures her. The Le Domas family prepares to sacrifice Grace in a Satanic ritual by binding her spread eagle to a table. After the family collectively drink from a chalice of wine as part of the ritual, they all start to vomit, except for Daniel who non-lethally poisoned the wine, coming to the realisation that his family are really all better of dead. 

Daniel frees Grace and they try to leave the house before Daniel is shot in the neck at close range and killed by Charity. Grace starts a fire, which is ignored and gradually takes hold as the family continues to pursue her as the clock counts down on sunrise. She gets into a fight with Becky and manages to beat her to death with the box with several calculated blows to the head. Alex meanwhile has also managed to escape his captivity and he arrives to see the lifeless body of his mother. Coming to the realisation that even if he lets Grace live she won't want to be with him, he captures her, and calls to the other family members.

Now for the second time, the gathered remaining family members try to sacrifice Grace. Alex, is unable to kill his wife, and stabs Grace in her shoulder instead. Just as dawn breaks through the curtains, Helene makes a last-ditch attempt to see off Grace by attacking her with her axe, but upon approach and without warning she explodes in a cloud of blood and gore. The other members of the family look at each other in horror. By this time Grace has freed herself from her bindings. As Tony pleads to Mr. Le Bail for a reprieve all explode one by one. Last to go, Alex begs Grace for forgiveness, but explodes when Grace removes her wedding ring, throws it at her husband and demands a divorce. As the flames take hold and steadily engulf the house, they momentarily form the outline of Mr. Le Bail sitting at the head of the table. He makes eye contact and nods in approval as Grace turns to escape, covered from head to toe in the blood of the exploded Le Domas family members.

I enjoyed 'Ready or Not', and I think you will too if bloody tongue in cheek horror tinged with indiscriminate laugh out loud moments of humour are your thing. Samara Weaving is the revelation here, proving her acting chops through a wide range of emotions as she experiences anxiety, fear, pain, hysteria, frustration, courage, conviction, stress and relief while fighting for her own survival against a determined family Hell bent on seeing her off, and the Devil himself. The plot is simple enough but there are enough twists in there to keep it fresh, the cast all looked as though they were having a good time and don't take it too seriously, and there is hidden meaning in the storyline of course - and that is one of just how far the privileged have's will go to protect their wealth and standing from the underprivileged ring-in have not's - and it seems, all the way no matter what the consequences are. Plenty of gore, buckets of blood, brutal killings, dark comedy, a simple story well told and never a dull moment. On a production budget of just US$6M Co-Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett have proven what's possible on a micro-budget and have helmed a film that is much bigger than the sum of its parts.

'Ready or Not' warrants four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-