Mark my words: Samara Weaving is this generation’s Jamie Lee Curtis.
Following standout turns in The Babysitter and Mayhem, Weaving carved out her place as a scream queen unlike any we’ve seen since Curtis ignited our passion for the final girl in cult films like Halloween, Prom Night and Terror Train.
Weaving brings a fierce mixture of strength, humor and relatability to even the bloodiest of genre fare, and with Ready or Not, the second feature-length film from Radio Silence (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett), she makes audiences fall in love with, and root for, her character, Grace — even as she's forced to go all-out-war in order to survive.
The film, a wicked interpretation of The Most Dangerous Game, finds Grace on her wedding day, anxiously fretting about her impending nuptials to Alex (Mark O’Brien), and whether her soon-to-be in-laws, the uber-wealthy Le Domas family, will accept and love her.
The Le Domas clan made its fortune in tabletop gaming (think of an evil Parker Brothers dynasty) after a great-great-descendant met a strange man, Mr. Le Bail, on a ship who gifted him a mystery box. I’m being purposefully vague here because, truly, the joy of Ready or Not comes from being surprised and not knowing all the details.
The Le Domas family are all nicely sketched out characters. There’s the snobby parents Tony (Henry Czerny) and Becky (a deliciously evil Andie MacDowell); Alex’s older brother Daniel (Adam Brody) and his wife Charity (Elyse Levesque); Alex’s sister Emilie (Melanie Scrofano), her husband Fitch (Kristian Bruun) and their kids; and Tony’s super-creepy sister, Aunt Helene (Nicky Guadagni).
The family, save for Daniel, gives Grace a chilly welcome.
“Don’t take it personally,” Daniel tells her, “they’re just trying to figure out if you’re a gold-digging whore, like my wife.”
Per family tradition, any time a new member is ushered in, the entire collective must play a game at exactly midnight on the wedding day. Using the same, more than a century-old mystery box, Grace is told to pick a random card that will inform the group of the game to be played. She gets “hide and seek,” and is immediately sent out to hide inside the cavernous, decadently ornate Le Domas mansion, which has secret tunnels and servant quarters and a dumbwaiter.
What Grace isn’t told, not until much later by a remorseful Alex, is that sometimes, new initiates to the family don’t survive playing the game because they are meant to serve a higher purpose, namely repaying the debt that has continued to reward the family with a windfall of riches.
“You said your family was fucked up,” Grace admonishes her husband. “You didn’t say psycho killers!”
If you’re not familiar with Radio Silence, they’re a creative trio (third member Chad Villella is a producer on Ready or Not) that first garnered buzz in 2012 directing the segment, “10/31/98,” from the horror anthology, V/H/S. Three years later, they helmed the opening and closing segments of another horror anthology, Southbound.
Ready or Not, however, represents a giant leap forward from their first feature, 2014’s Devil’s Due, in almost every category. This is a gorgeous film to watch with the Le Domas mansion almost becoming its own character. It’s sharply funny, the kills are inventively staged and it’s packed with twists and surprises.
Seriously, while you may know where the story is going, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett don’t telegraph any of the third act reveals. If anything, when the big splatter-y moments come, you’ll be whooping with delight and giggling at the gore.
After a fitfully underwhelming summer movie season packed with far too many disappointing sequels and a complete dearth of exciting, original ideas, Ready or Not arrives at the perfect time to remind audiences how much fun it can be to watch an incredibly resourceful regular person manhandle a bunch of fussy elitists who are long overdue for some bloody comeuppance.
John W. Allman has spent more than 25 years as a professional journalist and writer, but he’s loved movies his entire life. Good movies, awful movies, movies that are so gloriously bad you can’t help but champion them. Since 2009, he has cultivated a review column and now a website dedicated to the genre films that often get overlooked and interviews with cult cinema favorites like George A. Romero, Bruce Campbell and Dee Wallace. Contact him at bloodviolenceandbabes.com, on Facebook or on Twitter.
This article appears in Aug 22-29, 2019.