Displaying items by tag: Ready or Not movie

READY OR NOT

US, 2019, 95 minutes, Colour.

Samara Weaving, Adam Brody, Mark O' Brien, Henry Czerny, Andi Mc Dowell, Nicky Guadagni, John Ralston.

Directed by Mark Bettinelli- Olpin, Tyler Gillette.

The title obviously has us ready for games, for hide and seek. And, just in case we didn’t pick up on it, the pre-credit sequence offers us a rather grimly comic version, set in a mansion, very well-dressed characters pursuing the hider with a range of weapons, a young boy offering a hiding place in a closet, only for him to tell everybody else that this is where their victim was. And, he is a victim.

Move on 30 years.

This is a contemporary horror story, more than a touch of the gory, but a tale very much tongue-in-cheek, the blend of horror and comedy – and more than a dash of Satanism. Which means, of course, that we might be laughing one moment, thinking that the characters and their behaviour is absurd at another moment, reacting to some grizzly deaths, and then

smiling again.

One drawback for audiences who might be able to enter into the macabre fun is that much of the dialogue exhibits the syndrome of lazy writing, ultra-lazy writing, with expletives and four-letter exclamations substituting for real dialogue. In fact, a lot of this kind of script becomes very tiresome – and, to quote a very serious reviewer with whom many of us would not always agree, actually made a strong comment about the leading lady being “notably foul-mouthed” as are most of the rest of the characters.

With that off the chest, we can say that Ready or Not has a lot going for it if you want a satire on the ultra-rich in the US, referred to as “the one percent”, if you want huge plot exaggerations, if you want sinister humour.

The setting is a wedding at an enormous mansion, the home of the groom (Mark O’ Brien) and his older brother (Adam Brody) who happens to be the little boy that did the betraying in the pre-credit sequence. Millionaire father is Henry Czerny. Wife is Andie Mc Dowell. And, the heroine is played by Samara Weaving (with everybody noting that she could pass for Margot Robbie’s sister). Her name is Grace and we learn that she was an orphan, fostered, in love with her fiance who has rejected the greedy family who are very wary about introducing such a young woman into their exalted household. It can be noted that there is a harridan aunt, daughter, some wives and husbands and a supercilious butler and several maids. Not exactly a spoiler, but it can be said that there are very few survivors of the film!

The family has built on wealth achieved by an unlikely coincidence and is proud of its family tradition. However, at midnight on the wedding day, a game has to be played. Unfortunately, for Grace, it is Hide and Seek, with her death as the culmination – and, performed in a ritual satanic ceremony!

Back in the 1920s and with several later films on the same theme, there was an archetypal story, The Most Dangerous Game, the pursuit of all the characters and their elimination. (Agatha Christie did it in And Then there were None). So, it is quite dangerous ride, an increasing number of gory deaths, leaving Grace a persevering survivor, some betrayals, and quite a number of puffs of blood!