Ready or Not
The film begins with a flashback in which two masked young boys see a man being killed with longbows. Events then move forward 30 years to when a couple, Alex Le Domas and Grace, are getting married in the grounds of the mansion belonging to Alex’s wealthy family. You can tell by Alex’s body language that he is uncomfortable to be around his family members and in the mansion, but Grace is generally happy to be having a ‘dream wedding’, only being a little embarrassed about her smoking with Alex’s mother, lying about being a smoker when the older woman is lighting up.
After the wedding, it is explained that they are going to play a game that night and it could be checkers, old maid, or something else. Everyone sits around a fairly ornate table and a little more background to the history of this tradition is provided: Alex’s great, great-grandfather made a deal with a Mr Le Ball in which he would help the Le Domas family become rich in return for this tradition where everyone who joins the family must play a game when the clock strikes midnight on the wedding night. When Grace pulls a card from the box which reads ‘hide and seek’ some people round the table look a little surprised and uncomfortable.
This surprise and discomfort is not unfounded because once Grace has gone off to hide with a head start with the other family members counting to 100, they began pulling antique weaponry from the walls with the clear intention to hunt her down and kill her.
The tone of the film is established at this point when unexpected deaths begin to happen with an amount of gore and violence which is just on the right side of gratuitous, and played for laughs with the darkest of dark humour involving accidental deaths, an unhelpful telephone operator and a homicidal butler.
The characters are great and entirely plausible when you have a large and obscenely wealthy family, ranging from the alcoholic brother to the bloodthirsty elderly aunt and the accident-prone sister, who is also terrible at keeping her cocaine use a secret. It is written with dark humour that wouldn’t have been out of place in The League of Gentlemen and directed with a real sense of flair and energy.
I don’t really want to say any more so as not to spoil this for anyone (there are a surprising number of spoilers in the trailer), but will say that it is a highly enjoyable, smart and gruesome movie which you can watch while relaxing with some popcorn and/or a drink. I can understand why it received a lot of critical praise and people including Guillermo del Toro and Stephen King have sung its praises.
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