Three stars. Rated R, for violence, gore, drug use, relentless profanity and buckets o' blood
By Derrick Bang
Fans of dark-dark-dark humor — who can work up a macabre chuckle amidst gore, gouts of blood and the occasional decapitation — are guaranteed to have a great time with this little chiller.
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| Concealed — and as yet undetected — behind a bed, Grace (Samara Weaving) has just discovered the lethal details of the "game" her new husband Alex (Mark O'Brien) insisted that she join. |
The timid and squeamish — which is to say, everybody else — are advised to steer veryclear.
Ready or Not comes from the gleefully demented minds of a filmmaking trio collectively known as Radio Silence: co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillet, and executive producer Chad Villella. Their previous big-screen efforts haven’t made much noise — V/H/S, Devil’s Due and Southbound are best left forgotten — but this one likely will elevate their cred.
As well it should. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillet have made the most of a sharply honed script by Guy Busick and Ryan Murphy, which develops a simple premise into an exciting, 95-minute thrill ride. The execution may be gruesome, but there’s no denying the edge-of-the-seat suspense.
That “simple premise” will look familiar to those with fond memories of 2017’s Get Out, because the opening act is pretty much identical, albeit with a gender reversal: young adult brings lover home to “meet the folks,” whereupon the unsuspecting newcomer discovers all manner of dangerous weirdness within the massive mansion walls.
Mind you, Ready or Not doesn’t have anywhere near the ingenious social subtext that brought Get Out’s Jordan Peele a well-deserved Academy Award for original screenplay … unless, perhaps, Busick and Murphy intend a satiric shot at the notion that the obscenely wealthy really arehopelessly out of touch. But that’s probably giving them too much credit.
At best, Ready or Not is a guilty pleasure, and an unapologetic tip of the hat to the cheerfully grotesque excesses of France’s infamous Grand Guignol stage productions, with a literary nod toward Marlowe and Goethe.
We open on a wedding day, with humble Grace (Samara Weaving) brought by fiancé Alex (Mark O’Brien) to the immense estate owned by the parents from whom he has been estranged for many years. We initially wonder why he’d bother, given that so many of the arriving clan members seem related to the Addams Family, but — as Busick and Murphy carefully establish — everything happens for a reason.
