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-

What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 24th October 2019.

The 63rd British Film Institute London Film Festival took place between the 2nd and 13th October this year. This annual film festival founded in 1953 is held in the UK, runs for two weeks in October with cooperation from the British Film Institute, and screens more than 300 films, documentaries and shorts from approximately 50 countries.






This years opening film was 'The Personal History of David Copperfield' in this UK Production Directed by Armando Iannucci. Starring Dev Patel in the title role with Ben Whishaw, Hugh Laurie, Peter Capaldi and Tilda Swinton this film tells the classic Charles Dickens story following Copperfield from early youth through to middle age, tracing his social awakening and charting his huge personal ups and downs as he witnesses the best and worst of humanity in this Victorian England set epic.
The closing night film was Martin Scorsese's epic 'The Irishman' which by now I'm sure needs no introduction other than to say it unites an all star cast taking in Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, Al Pacino, Ray Romano, Stephen Graham, Bobby Cannavale and Anna Paquin.

This year there were ten films in Official Competition, which were :
* 'FANNY LYE DELIVER'D' - this UK and German Co-Produced historical drama film set in 1657 England is Directed by Thomas Clay and stars Maxine Peake, Charles Dance and Freddie Fox.
* 'HONEY BOY' - this US Production is Directed by Alma Har'el and Written by Shia LaBeouf and starring Shia LaBeouf, Lucas Hedges and Noah Jupe about a child Actor in Hollywood struggling with an unconventional and brutalising past.
* 'LINGUA FRANCA' - is a US Production Directed by Isabel Sandoval and starring Eamon Farren, Lynn Cohen, Lev Gorn and Isabel Sandoval and is about an undocumented Filipino immigrant woman living in Brooklyn searching for safety and security in her chosen country.
* 'LA LLORONA' - not be confused with the recent supernatural horror film 'The Curse of La Llorona', this Guatemalan and French Co-Produced film by Director Jayro Bustamante tells the story of a retired general in failing health who witnesses spectres of his past which come back to haunt him as he his tried for genocide.
* 'MOFFIE' - is a UK and South African Co-Production Directed by Oliver Hermanus and stars Kai Luke Brummer, Ryan de Villiers, and Matthew Vey and tells the story of the violent persecution of gay men during their national service years under South Africa's 1981 Apartheid regime.
* 'MONOS' - a multi-national Co-Produced war drama film Directed by Alejandro Landes and starring Julianne Nicholson and Moises Arias in this hallucinogenic thriller about child soldiers high up in the South American mountains who are hiding an American Doctor prisoner.
* 'THE OTHER LAMB' - here this Irish, Belgian and US Co-Produced film is Directed by Malgorzata Szumowska and stars Raffey Cassidy, Michael Huisman and Denise Gough and is about life in an otherworldly cult known as The Flock, a community of women and girls ruled over by Shepherd, the only male, and a seemingly benevolent but undisputed leader of the strictly regimented and isolated woodland settlement.
* 'THE PERFECT CANDIDATE' - this German and Saudi Arabian Co-Production is Directed by Haifaa Al Mansour and tells the story of a young Doctor who unexpectedly becomes an electoral candidate, challenging Saudi Arabia's strict social codes of what is expected of a young woman in that country.
* 'ROSE PLAYS JULIE' - this Irish and UK Co-Produced drama film is Directed by Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor and stars Ann Skelly, Orla Brady and Aiden Gillen and is about a young woman seeking her biological mother ultimately taking us through longing and revenge to arrive at the darker places of power and its abuse.
* 'SAINT MAUD' - here this UK Produced psychological drama is Directed by first timer Rose Glass and stars Morfydd Clarke and Jennifer Ehle and tells the story of a young nurse with a mysterious past who becomes dangerously obsessed with a former and dying dancer, whom she is now looking after as her live in carer.

In Official Competition, 'MONOS' took out the Award for Best Film. Special Commendations were also given by the Jury for 'Honey Boy' and 'Saint Maud'.

To get all the news on the years BFI London Film Festival, you can visit the official website at : https://www.whatson.bfi.org.uk

This week we have six new film releases to tease you out to your local Odeon. We start the week with a story of a gifted young, albeit bullied Pakistani poet growing up 50kms northwest of London in 1987, who who is given a new outlook on life through the music of 'The Boss'. We then have a comedy horror offering surrounding a newly wed bride who must survive an age old family ritual playing hide and seek with potentially deathly consequences. With weddings featuring heavily this week, we have next a story set in 1974 Melbourne involving a marriage between a couple who were promised to each other in their early childhood by their fathers, only now 21 years later feelings and attitudes have changed! Following on we have a tale of an Indian orphanage founder who travels to New York as the behest of a wealthy benefactor, only to be invited to her daughters wedding the next day from which ghosts from the past are unexpectedly resurrected. Then we have a horror offering in time for Halloween that sees a smartphone app able to predict with pinpoint accuracy exactly when you are going to die, and when a young nurse downloads the app to her dismay it seems she has only three days to live - it's a race against time then to stop the clock or stop the mystery figure haunting her. And we wrap up the week with a biography of perhaps the worlds greatest operatic tenor who died in 2007.

Whatever your taste in big screen film entertainment is this week - be it any of the six latest release new movies as Previewed below, or those doing the rounds currently on general release and as Reviewed and Previewed in previous Blog Posts here at Odeon Online, you are most welcome to share your movie going thoughts, opinions and observations by leaving your relevant, succinct and appropriate views in the Comments section below this or any other Post. We'd love to hear from you, and in the meantime, enjoy your big screen Odeon outing during the coming week.

'BLINDED BY THE LIGHT' (Rated PG) - is a British comedy drama film Directed and Co-Produced by Gurinder Chadha whose previous Directorial credits include 'Bhaji on the Beach', 'Bend it Like Beckham', 'Bride and Prejudice', and 'Viceroy's House' most recently. Inspired by the life of journalist Sarfraz Manzoor and his love of the works of Bruce Springsteen, Manzoor co-wrote the script with Chadha. It is based on Manzoor's memoir 'Greetings from Bury Park: Race, Religion and Rock N’ Roll'. The film saw its Worldwide Premier screening at this years Sundance Film Festival, went on general release in the UK in early August, in the US in mid-August, has received generally positive critical acclaim, and has so far taken US$17M at the Box Office off the back of US$15M cost of production.

Javed Khan (Viveik Kalra) is a Pakistani teenager who experiences racial and economic turmoil while living in Luton, England, in 1987 in Margaret Thatcher's Britain. He writes poetry and lyrics for his best friend Matt's (Dean-Charles Chapman) band as a way to escape the intolerance of his hometown and the stubborn views of his traditional father Malik (Kulvinder Ghir). When a classmate introduces him to the music of Bruce Springsteeen, Javed sees parallels between the singer's powerful lyrics and his own working-class environment. Springsteen's melodies soon inspire Javed to find his own voice and follow his dreams. Also starring Hayley Atwell, Rob Brydon and Nell Williams.

'READY OR NOT' (Rated MA15+) - is an American comedy thriller horror offering Directed by the pairing of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. The film was released in the US in late August, has received generally positive Reviews and has so far grossed US$53M off the back of a US$6M production budget. And so the story here surrounds Grace Le Domas (Samara Weaving) who couldn't be happier after she marries the man of her dreams, Alex Le Domas (Mark O'Brien) at his family's luxurious country estate. There's just one catch - she must now hide from midnight until dawn while her new in-laws hunt her down with guns, crossbows and other weapons in a macabre game of Hide and Seek which is a generations long standing family ritual of playing a game at midnight on the wedding night with each new addition to the family. As Grace desperately tries to survive the night against seemingly overwhelming odds, she soon finds a way to turn the tables on her not-so-lovable relatives. Also starring Adam Brody, Henry Czerny and Andie MacDowell.

'PROMISED' (Rated PG) - this Australian and Italian Co-Produced Romantic Drama film is Written, Produced and Directed by first timer Nick Conidi. Here, back in the Melbourne of 1953 two young Italian children - five year old Robert (Daniel Berini) and newborn Angela (Antoniette Iesue) are promised in marriage by their fathers, Sal (Paul Mercurio) and Joe (Mirko Grillini). Against the reservations of Angela’s mother Rosalba (Tina Arena), Sal is insistent that he must uphold his promise to Joe – a man with 'connections'. Twenty-one years on to 1974, and Angela is now a beautiful, intelligent and modern lady whose dreams and aspirations lie well beyond the family pastry shop. Robert, now 25, has just returned home from studying law abroad at Oxford. Despite changing times, fading traditions, Angela’s love for another man, and the more liberal attitudes of the mid-'70's, she is still expected to marry Robert. As a web of secrets, lies and revelations rise to the surface, it teaches everyone involved that love, like life, can never be perfectly arranged.

'AFTER THE WEDDING' (Rated M) - is an American drama film Written and Directed by Bart Freundlich whose previous film making credits take in 'World Traveller', 'Catch That Kid', 'Trust the Man', 'Rebound' and 'Wolves' more recently. This film is a remake of the 2006 film of the same name by Susanne Bier. The film saw its World Premier at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, its release in the US in mid-August, has so far received generally mixed or average Reviews and has grossed just US$2M. Here, Isabel (Michelle Williams), a co-founder of an orphanage in the Indian city of Kolkata travels to New York to meet a potential benefactor, Theresa Young (Julianne Moore). Despite her frustration by the need to justify a charitable donation, she agrees to the meeting, which falls a day before the wedding of Theresa's daughter (Abby Quinn). Isabel is unexpectedly invited to the wedding and the events that ensue force her to confront decisions she made twenty years previously as well as a man from her past, who turns out to be Theresa's husband (Billy Crudup).

'COUNTDOWN' (Rated CTC) - Directed and Written by Justin Dec in his feature film debut this American horror thriller arrives just in time for Halloween. Here whilst it seems that everything about our lives are on our smart phones, now it appears so to is our death. Everyone around young nurse Quinn (Elizabeth Lail) is having fun with a new app called 'Countdown' which predicts to the exact second how much longer you have got left to live. But when Quinn downloads the app to her horror and dismay it tells her that she has just three days left to live. With time running out, the clock counting down and a mysterious figure haunting her, she must find a way to to save her life before the clock says it's time to die. Also starring Charlie McDermott, Anne Winters and P.J. Byrne. The film is released in the US this week too.

'PAVAROTTI' (Rated M) - this UK and USA Co-Produced documentary film is Directed by Ron Howard and is about the world renowned Italian operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti who died in September 2007 at the age of 71 having been active in his chosen field of singing since 1955. The film was produced with the cooperation of Luciano Pavarotti's estate using family archives, interviews and live music footage, was released in the US in early June this year, then in the UK in mid-July and now for a limited release in Australia. The film has garnered generally positive press and has so far grossed US$7M.

With six new release movies this week to tempt you out to your local Odeon, remember to share your movie going thoughts with your other like minded cinephile friends afterwards here at Odeon Online. In the meantime, I'll see you sometime somewhere in the week ahead, at your local Odeon.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-