Ready or Not (2019) | Film Review

Is there anything more stressful for an impending marriage than meeting your in-laws?

Think about it: you have this firmly established relationship, a love cultivated from months or years of shared experiences, and now you have to meet the most important people in your beloved’s life. The sheer pressure of either approval or mere acceptance throbs in the back of your head like a Mardis Gras hangover. Now, imagine you’re Grace in Ready or Not, and your in-laws are phenomenally rich, cultured, and also they’re maniacal Satanists who have sold their souls to the devil, needing to sacrifice your very soul before sunrise or they’re going to lose everything. Talk about unreasonable expectations.

Samara Weaving stars as Grace, an apropos name for her character as she constantly struggles to maintain the frivolous illusion that she’s worthy of her elegant in-laws. Those being the infamous Le Domas family, a game-making dynasty worth an untold fortune. Coming from a humble background (and apparently having no friends to invite for her nuptials for some unexplained reason), Grace desperately wants to fit in and take her rightful place alongside the other Le Domases of the world. Weaving’s natural charisma immediately endears us to Grace’s journey, establishing right off the bat this is no feeble-minded gold digger, she is a character worth rooting for.

But, there’s a trick.

In order to be accepted into the family, Grace needs to participate in a game that each member must play upon marriage. As Tony (a kinetically frenzied Henry Czerny), the Le Domas patriarch, explains; Grace must draw a card from a mysterious box, and whatever game is listed on that card will be played. Many of the games one only has to participate in, but if you pull the dreaded ‘Hide and Seek’ card, then the Le Domas family must hunt you down like a wild gazelle and slaughter you before dawn to appease an erroneous demon that holds their family’s very lives in his hands.

Maybe the demonic backstory is true or maybe they’re raging psychotics, either way, we are treated to a giddily gory time as Grace has to fight an army of Le Domases stacked with various weapons in order to survive the night…in her wedding gown. Though she gets a couple of assists at the outset from her homicide-opposed and tragically conflicted fiancé, Alex (Mark O’Brien), essentially Grace is on her own for a night filled with blood, sweat, and a hearty dose of reevaluating life choices.

Ready or Not, as a friend so pointedly put it, is Clue if it took place during The Purge. Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett utilize the inner trappings of the vast Le Domas mansion to glorious effect. As our heroine dips in-and-out of hidden passageways and dumbwaiters, her illuminating white wedding dress impossible to miss for the hunters, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett use her lack of knowledge on the premises to keep the tension palpable. Each corner she turns might bring with it a sharp arrow to the gullet or a bullet to the dome. The tightened corridors and heightened backdrop complement the festivities, providing for more than a few instances of accidental assassination and hilarity.

Depending on your particular viewpoint, the film functions as a visual representation of the pain of meeting one’s in-laws, OR the filthy rich’s constant desire to expunge the 1% by any means possible, OR even the mental breakdown of a woman trapped in a tragic marriage she desperately wants to flee. You can take the meaning as deep as you choose, or just sit back and enjoy the insanity because this is the most fun horror flick of the summer!

I don’t know about you, but typically I head to the theater to vacate my problems, not project them onto the screen. From the moment the rules are established, we’re nudged to the edge of our seat to see how Grace is going to escape the clutches of this overfunded Manson cult. To the screenplay’s benefit, at no point does she mysteriously morph into the slickest killer in the land, decimating family members with a wink and a twirl of her gown. Instead, Grace remains a reasonable character out of her element, clawing her way to survival as she has her entire life, one moment at a time.

As in the aforementioned Clue, an assortment of oddly compelling characters jazz up the proceedings. Alex’s brother, Daniel (Adam Brody), constantly waffles between his duties and the very notion of right vs. wrong, proving his loyalties are as twisted as the family mission statement. Their father and mother (Czerny and Andie MacDowell) appear good-natured and kind at first, though protecting their family legacy through homicide proves to be a much stronger character element as they evolve into mass-murderers. The remainder of characters vary from imbeciles to selfish sadists, and that is not excluding the maids or even the children. But ultimately, everything comes down to Grace.

Samara Weaving has been the best thing about whatever project she’s associated with for the last couple of years (The Babysitter, Mayhem), and this is no exception. The filmmakers do not go easy on Grace, forcing her to indulge everything from slashed skin to gunshots, and like Rocky Balboa, she just keeps getting back up for another round. Though it would have been nice to see Grace completely destroy this family as an absurd avenging angel, Weaving manages to hold our attention and keep us firmly invested in every choice Grace makes by making it damn near impossible to not completely soak up every line of dialogue she chews or giggle at every side-eye of frustration at her predicament. At no point did she invoke a ludicrous strategy or idiotic character choice simply for plot convenience. And don’t even get me started on her amazing scream, a reverbing yodel crossed with a cliff-diving raccoon, it’s truly a sound of majestic glory.

Like any marriage, at some point it has to end. Whether it’s till death or the credits roll, Ready or Not makes the most of a souped-up premise, a magnetic star-on-the-rise, and an absolutely bonkers conclusion. This is the rare wedding you don’t want to miss, so get a spot right up front and settle in for a ceremony from Hell.