Ready or Not Review

We're entering late August, which is a bit of a dead zone when it comes to the box office. It's often a crowded field quantity-wise, but not a lot of the movies are making a lot of money as it's one of those times where studios are dumping a whole bunch of smaller films in hopes to make a quick buck or two while they wait for the more lucrative times of the year. Thus it becomes a bit of a challenge in sifting through everything to find what's worth seeing. The last two weekends saw a total of 10 wide releases hit theaters, with three more being added this upcoming weekend. I got through a few of those, while adding a few more to the list of movies I'll eventually check out. Now it's time to play the waiting game for "IT: Chapter Two," which is poised to explode into theaters on September 6. In the meantime, though, I may have hit a late August gem in this hide and seek thriller. This is a movie I've had my eye on for a while now as it's had a rather aggressive marketing campaign. Initially I wasn't completely sure what to expect, but I thought it had potential based on the trailers. Then the reviews came out and I was taken aback because this was sitting at 100 percent for a while. Yep, that got my attention. It's fallen a tad bit since then, but it's still at a certified fresh 89 percent.

I think the most amusing thing to me is that this is a Fox Searchlight picture. Usually when you get a late August horror film, Screen Gems or Blumhouse is the responsible party. Both of those studios are good at finding the right weekend to sneak in a quick horror film that was dirt cheap to make and get a decent profit off of it based off of the almost non-existent production budgets. The quality can be hit and miss for them, but every once in a while you get a fun one, like "Don't Breathe" (Screen Gems) or "Happy Death Day" (Blumhouse). "Don't Breathe" is one that I was especially thinking of when it came to "Ready or Not" as both are movies where our protagonists are trapped in a house, trying to escape, and both movies were released in late August. But no, "Ready or Not" doesn't come from Screen Gems or Blumhouse. It comes from Fox Searchlight, a studio best known for their mastering the awards season as three of their films this decade have won best picture. So they're usually releasing a bunch of high-profile independent films, not late August thrillers. It gets even funnier when you realize Fox Searchlight's parent company is now Disney. So from Disney and Fox Searchlight comes a rather darkly comedic, gruesome, late-August thriller. 

This movie is an absolute blast, though. It's sure to become a cult classic as it's not looking to make a whole lot at the box office. Despite being positioned well in late August, a good spot for breakout horror films, and having Fox Searchlight's widest ever release with 2,855 theaters, it has the unfortunate challenge of following in the footsteps of "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" and "47 Meters Down: Uncaged," two horror films this month that already took advantage of the prime positioning. Then we have the elephant in the room that "IT: Chapter Two" comes out in two weeks. So the horror fans have been well served this month, which can lead to lower box office. But I say this has cult classic potential because, not only have critics enjoyed this, but audiences seem to be enjoying it, too, as it has a solid 82 percent on the Rotten Tomatoes audience section to go along with a B+ Cinemascore, both of which are pretty high for a horror film. Oftentimes the horror films that get critically praised see the general audiences spit in their face. So the fact that everyone seems to be enjoying this means the word is eventually going to get out, even if it means people are still discovering it in a year or two instead of rushing out to see it in theaters in the next month or so.

If you've never heard of this movie, but you like yourself a good horror film, I'd almost suggest you simply take a leap of faith by closing this review, not watching any trailers, and going in blind. That would be a really fun experience as there's so many crazy things that happen in setting up this movie's premise. I kinda wish that I had known nothing about it going in, but that rarely happens for me when I go to so many movies and thus see all the new trailers for upcoming movies. This trailer specifically shows quite a bit from the first half of the movie, but Fox Searchlight had their hands tied a bit in that regard because if they hadn't shown as much, they wouldn't have been able to attract anyone to come see an original horror film that's not based on anything or a part of a pre-existing franchise. Because as much as people complain about not having as much original films, when said original films show up people don't go see them because they're not part of something familiar. It drives me crazy. That said, the trailer doesn't spoil anything from the last half of the movie. It's just that I had to wait a bit before I got to something that I hadn't seen in the trailer as the trailer does a great job of a being a thorough summary of the first third of the movie.

If you don't want to just trust me and go see this, then let's proceed with what this movie actually is. It stars discount Margot Robbie as a girl who has just married into a crazy family. I say discount Margot Robbie because that's who the whole internet either thinks she is or thinks she looks like. And I agree. She looks practically identical and is only two years younger. In reality her name is Samara Weaving and she's the niece of actor Hugo Weaving. She hasn't been in a whole lot. She played a small role in "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" and starred in the Netflix film "The Babysitter." But I wouldn't be surprised if suddenly Hollywood now takes a huge interest in her because she is fantastic in this role. In the movie, what should be the best night of her life with this marriage instead turns into her worst nightmare. Her husband's family has a tradition where every time a new person comes into the family, they have to play a game at midnight. The game is selected at random, but if the choice ends up being hide and seek, they feel that they have to kill you before down because they're superstitious due to reasons that they will all die if they don't. And of course Grace, our lead character, selects hide and seek. So the family locks down the house and tries to kill her.

That's the basic premise. The movie is actually fairly simple in plot, but fantastic in execution. What makes it such a blast is this crazy family dynamic. First and foremost, you really care about Grace. She's a very strong female character who has a pure innocence to her. Given that it's her wedding night, she looks drop dead gorgeous as she's all fancied up with her hair, makeup, and beautiful dress. But now she is doomed to die as everyone is trying to kill her and she's the least deserving human being to be designated this fate, thus you are desperately cheering that she someone makes it through a whole night with all of these psychopaths chasing her down. The other element that made this really fun was that all the family members chasing her down had unique personalities that made for an interesting dynamic. And they lived in an old-fashioned home in the middle of the woods with a lot of more ancient weapons that they really didn't know how to use. Given that it had been a while since someone drew hide and seek, they're also out of practice. So it's not your typical home invasion where the villains are trained killers. It's a group of bumbling idiots chasing down a poor, innocent girl who had no idea any of this was going to happen.

Enter chaos. While I do still claim this as a horror film, it's not the type of horror film that is extremely intense and serious the whole time. The movie has a wide variety of tones that I think are excellently mixed together. It's very much a crazy slasher film at times with exaggerated deaths that will have you rolling around in laughter due to the shock value. It's also extremely hilarious in other ways, yet in doing so it doesn't compromise the rest of the film. It reminded me of a Kingsman movie if Kingsman did a horror spin-off. It's that level of crazy, hilarious absurdity. It very much has a lot of dark humor to it, which I thought was well implemented. Yet despite that, the horror elements are still well crafted as there's a lot of tension throughout that had me uneasily cowering in my chair. And the lighting of the whole movie was spot on. Most of the movie takes place between midnight and dawn, so it's naturally dark everywhere, but they're also in an old-fashioned house that's dimly lit to begin with. It's also a big house, providing plenty of places for our girl to hide while at the same time causing there to be plenty opportunities for a family member to come out of nowhere to chase her down. The set design with all this is great, so the result is a perfectly crafted horror film.

On top of all this, I really liked a lot of the character development. It's not a movie that's just going for a bunch of cheap scares, like is the case with some home invasion movies. But in addition to all the crazy absurdity, there's a layer of emotional depth to it. You can understand where everyone is coming from and you buy into the conflict of a lot of the family members who don't want to do this, but are so terrified of this family curse that they feel they have no choice and thus decide that they would rather kill an innocent girl than face whatever might happen if they get to dawn and she's still alive. But they're all on different levels of commitment. Some are wondering if perhaps this whole thing is bogus and others don't care as much and would rather save the girl. I'm specifically talking about the new husband with the last part as he kinda likes his new wife and is not sure he wants to kill her just because the game says so. The husband's brother is in between all of this and has a great arc. But then we have some of them who have submitted to the darkness and are completely honed in on killing the girl in whatever way they can. Hence you go on a very wild ride that is very satisfying, especially because they totally stick the landing with how the film ends.

So yeah, this is a late August movie that comes highly recommended from me. I always enjoy it when a movie comes out of nowhere to become one that I really like. While it's always fun to look forward to and enjoy the latest Marvel or Star Wars movie, sometimes it can be even better to go into a movie that wasn't even on your radar and be completely blown away. It makes each movie going year quite the adventure that is fun to look back on. "Ready or Not" is obviously not going to be for everyone, but if you're in the mood for a crazy, intense, over-the-top horror adventure that also has a surprising amount of depth and character development, I think "Ready or Not" is well worth the price of admission. And if you're one who finds this movie later in life, in a way I'm a bit jealous for you because that means you weren't aware of all the advertising and had a lot more surprises come your way in the first half of the movie. But I'm not going to be too jealous because I do like the experience of finding a hidden gem early on in its movie life while doing my best to help get the word out. And if no one else reads or finds this review, then that's OK, too, because I enjoyed my escape into the world of this movie. It was quite the enjoyable boost of adrenaline. My grade for "Ready or Not" is a 9/10.