The rich really are different in Ready or Not, a bloody—and bloody-fun—satire of the American aristocracy. Every family has its quirky rituals, but the Le Domas clan—the coterie of smarmy blue bloods depicted here—is so accustomed to disposing of dead bodies, they instinctively toss a coin whenever they encounter a fresh corpse, a literal delegation of heads or tails. And if you think you’ve ever struggled to fit in with your moneyed in-laws, at least your great aunt has never charged at you while wielding a giant battle axe.
That’s just one of many daunting challenges faced by Grace (Samara Weaving), the heroine of this grisly, giddy tale. When the movie opens, she’s steeling herself for a different sort of nightmare: marrying into the Le Domas empire following a whirlwind romance with Alex (City on a Hill’s Mark O’Brien), one of the scions of the famous gaming dynasty. (“We prefer dominion,” he gently corrects her.) And if you strip away the brutal prologue, which finds a five-year-old Alex hiding in a closet while his relatives coolly murder a well-dressed man, the opening act of Ready or Not could perhaps be mistaken for a fish-out-of-water comedy, along with a send-up of the rich and brainless.
As the price of marrying Alex, Grace must navigate the peculiar codes and prickly personalities of her new family, who welcome her into the fold with varying degrees of warmth; his parents, Becky (Andie MacDowell) and Tony (Henry Czerny), seem reasonably satisfied despite her lack of pedigree, while his alcoholic brother, Daniel (Adam Brody), is friendly but somewhat caddish. That aforementioned aunt (Nicky Guadagni), on the other hand, fixes her with withering glares, though she seems to be that way with everyone; upon seeing another of Tony’s children, she supplies the stiff greeting, “Brown-haired niece, you continue to exist.”
Zing! And even once the medieval weapons come out and Ready or Not transforms into a demented take on The Most Dangerous Game (with a whiff of The Cabin in the Woods), a persistent level of sly comedy remains. This is a very funny movie, provided that you’re comfortable laughing at death, dismemberment, and devil-worshipping. The script, by Guy Busick and Ryan Murphy (no, not that one), recognizes the humor inherent in the collision of vast wealth and gross incompetence. Grace’s new relatives, who quickly become her pursuers—the plot, distilled to its delicious essence: terrified bride hides, deadly in-laws seek—may live in a colossal mansion stocked with murals and servants, but they are prone to petty squabbles and bouts of idiocy, which make them more likely to harm one another than their quarry. Call me heartless, but when a crossbow bolt inadvertently found its way into the forehead of an eager maid, I laughed harder than at any point during Good Boys.
Mostly, though, Ready or Not operates as a set piece machine, an episodic collection of elaborate evasions and justifiable homicides. Though she initially reacts with understandable horror upon discovering that Alex’s family ritualistically slaughters certain new entrants—the screenplay is wisely spare with exposition, dispensing with a cockamamie backstory about an ancient traveler as quickly as possible (it does offer a token explanation for why the Le Domas crew only wields archaic weapons)—Grace signals that she’s no hapless victim when she rips off the hem of her wedding dress and turns her shriek into a snarl. From that point forward, the film chronicles this defiant chick’s efforts to outfox her predators with an alacritous combination of gruesome violence and playful wit.
Well, sometimes. The directors, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (both making their second feature following the poorly received Devil’s Due), exhibit a keen sense of claustrophobic perspective, most notably in a chilling sequence set in a kitchen where Grace plays cat-and-mouse with an oblivious butler; whereas most of Ready or Not is pitched in a high key, that scene transpires in virtual silence, so that the slightest noise might result in our hero’s doom. There’s also an agonizing sequence in a shed featuring a pit full of skeletons, a rotted ladder, and a sickeningly sharp nail. (The last of those was presumably lifted from the set of A Quiet Place.) The movie also generates considerable mileage from the ornate textures of its menacing location, whether it’s the savagely spiked gate that Grace attempts to wriggle through or that most terrifying of ambulatory devices, the dumbwaiter.
At the same time, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett don’t bring all that much visual flair to the proceedings, and their color palette is so dark, it’s often difficult to discern what’s happening. A climactic scene is marred by spatial incoherence, while a ridiculous moment where Grace finds herself chatting with a customer service rep—which should be comic gold—never finds its rhythm. And as is often the case with repetitive thrillers, the longer Ready or Not goes on, the less transgressive and more predictable it feels.
Thankfully, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett have cast an ideal leading lady in Weaving. With feline eyes and her uncle Hugo’s elfin face, she has little difficulty articulating Grace’s fear and resolve, making credible her transformation from stunned bride to avenging badass.
Weaving also nobly anchors a movie whose supporting actors get to have more fun, and while the secondary characters are thoroughly one-note, that doesn’t make them boring. Not that they’re uniformly successful; as the lofty matriarch, MacDowell isn’t quite vampy enough, while O’Brien struggles to lend Alex’s sense of self-torture—he’s ostensibly caught between familial loyalty and romantic adoration—any real weight. But Brody and Czerny are both steady presences, as is Elyse Levesque as a no-nonsense sister-in-law. The real highlights, though, are Melanie Scrofano (Wynonna Earp) and Kristian Bruun (Orphan Black) as Alex’s sister and brother-in-law; she’s a cocaine addict who can’t help discharging random firearms, while he’s a skeptic who spends his time Googling things like, “pacts with the devil real or bullshit.” In other words, they’re both marvelously moronic; Scrofano in particular is a riot, hilariously undercutting the faux gravitas with her anarchic energy.
Speaking of gravitas, Ready or Not is in no way intended to be taken seriously. Or is it? It’s certainly possible to perceive an undercurrent of genuine rage coursing through this silly movie, a sense of social righteousness mixed in with the severed limbs and buckets of blood. Maybe that’s a stretch; it’s probably facile to interpret Grace as an everywoman, a “real American” fighting back against the injustices inflicted by the well-heeled ruling class. Yet during a brilliant scene which finds the Le Domas tribe hunched around a smartphone, watching in disbelief as Grace extricates herself from danger while classical music blares on the soundtrack, your cheers of joy may take on the echo of a rallying cry. You might find Grace’s gory vengeance against these avatars of prosperity to be implausible. But you will surely agree they had it coming.
Grade: B
Jeremy Beck is the editor-in-chief of MovieManifesto. He watches more movies and television than he probably should.