If you like your horror bloody and full of dark humor, you’ll love READY OR NOT (2019), a comedic yet brutal thrill ride about a deadly game of hide and seek.

It’s also a pretty funny take-down of the super rich.

Grace (Samara Weaving) is about to marry Alex Le Domas (Mark O’Brien) and by doing so marry into the ridiculously wealthy Le Domas family and empire. The Le Domas clan made their money in games and sports. Alex warns Grace that his family is weird and that she still has a chance to back out of the wedding, but she says she’s all in as she is in love with him.

Shoulda heeded that warning, Grace!

It turns out that Alex’s family is as strange as advertised, and then some. After the wedding, Alex informs Grace that it’s a family tradition that at midnight they all play a game, and after this experience, then Grace officially becomes part of the family. She doesn’t have to win the game. She simply has to agree to play. Grace loves games and so she sees no problem with this arrangement.

Inside the enormous game room of the Le Domas mansion, the patriarch of the family Tony Le Domas (Henry Czerny) explains the history of their empire, how his great-grandfather took possession of a mysterious box which Tony now holds in his hands, and how he made an arrangement with the box’s previous owner, that if he and his progeny agreed to play a game named in the box, then the stranger would finance the Le Domas business. This arrangement continues to the present day, and is the source of the Le Domas’ money.

However, there is one particular game that the Le Domas family fears playing, and that game is hide and seek, which just happens to be the one that Grace pulls from the box. See, it’s not just a game of hide and seek. In this version, after Grace hides, the family not only has to find her, but they have to kill her. The thinking being that every few years or so to continue their supernatural source of money, they have to provide a sacrifice. Otherwise, they will all die by dawn. As much as they don’t want to play this game, they have no qualms doing so.

However, in this case, things turn out to be not so easy, because once Grace finds out what’s going on, she fights back, and fights back hard.

READY OR NOT may sound like a lurid, ugly thriller, but it’s not. This is not a variation of THE PURGE movies. From the very first murder, when the ultra nervous Emilie (Melanie Scrofano) kills the wrong victim, and one of the family members asks, “Does this count?” it’s clear that this tale is being played for laughs, and it’s a game this movie plays well. The laughs are loud and frequent.

The screenplay by Guy Busick and Ryan Murphy is as sharp as the axe which lops off a person’s head in this movie. The funniest parts are the reactions of the Le Domas family. They’re aloof and impervious to the violence.

And it’s a good thing the story is played for laughs because the reasons behind the hide and seek hunt are rather ridiculous. This one would have struggled to work as a serious thriller.

The cast is solid and is more than up to the task of pulling off the bloody shenanigans. Samara Weaving is perfect as Grace, the hunted wife who refuses to be a victim and fights back, giving the Le Domas clan all they can handle. Weaving was phenomenal in THE BABYSITTER (2017),  a movie in which she played a murderous babysitter. That film was also quite humorous, and in that one she played the hunter rather than the hunted. Her performance in THE BABYSITTER was more memorable than her role here as Grace, but not by much. I like Weaving a lot and hope she continues to land leading roles. She’s exceptional.

The rest of the cast do marvelous jobs as the bizarre Le Domas family, especially Henry Czerny as patriarch Tony Le Domas. Other standouts include Melanie Scrofano as the hyper Emilie, and Elyse Levesque as the cold and deadly Charity Le Domas, who doesn’t mind killing to stay in the family, as she says her past life before she married into the Le Domas clan was far worse.

Mark O’Brien is fine as Grace’s new husband Alex Le Domas. He insists that he’s different from his family and vows to help Grace escape, but family ties run deep. Adam Brody is also very good as Alex’s older brother Daniel, an alcoholic, who is also sympathetic to Grace’s plight. And Nicky Guadagni nearly steals the show with an over the top performance as the tight-lipped evil eyed Aunt Helene.

Also in the cast is Andie MacDowell who plays matriarch Becky Le Domas. Even though MacDowell has been working steadily over the years, it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen her in a movie. Here, she pretty much plays things straight, and her scenes are mostly about trying to reconnect with her son Alex, refuting his claims that Grace has shown him the light, stealing her son’s thunder with the cutting remark that there’s no way a girl he’s known for only a year knows him better than she does. Ouch!

Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett keep the action fast and furious. The killings are graphic, bloody, and brutal, the weapons of choice include axes, crossbows, and guns, yet you’re more likely to laugh than shield your eyes and groan, although there is one wince-inducing scene involving Grace’s already mangled hand from a bullet, and a very large nail. Well, in spite of the laughter, this is a horror movie after all.

And the laughs from the audience were loud and frequent. It was clear that everyone in the theater was having a good time.

There are also plenty of swipes at the ultra rich, thematic elements which include the notion that money gives people power to do whatever they want without consequences, and how this is just accepted. Of course, here, as Grace fights back, that’s not how things go down this time.

I really liked READY OR NOT.  While I prefer horror that is more serious than this tale, I can’t deny that I had a lot of fun watching this one.

So strap yourself in and get ready for one relentless thrill ride.

Ready or not!

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