Ready or Not (2019)

My first impression after a couple minutes of "Ready or Not" was that we're getting towards something like "Knives Out", probably the best dark comedy I've watched in the last several years. It's not the same thing though. Here we have some horror accents, the subject is much simpler and there's no ending twist. Nevertheless, it was fun.

In the center of the story we have (as in "Knives Out", therefore the comparison) an aristocratic dysfunctional family, the Le Domas, who made their fortune in a board games industry, started like three generations behind, following a mysterious meeting of the great-grandfather, somewhere in the middle of the ocean with a guy named Le Bail (light spoiler: easy anagram). So the guy proposed a pact - luck and fortune for all the family members, but on one condition - during each new wedding night the new Le Domas is obligated to play a game with the rest of the family, the game being randomly decided by a box that draws a card for the player. The options seem harmless, chess, checkers, etc, with one single exception: hide and seek. The difference here are the rules saying that the new family member should also be the new loss of the family = must be found by the rest and sacrificed during a macabre ritual, otherwise no more luck, fortune and add the life on top of that.

We move back to the present, when Alex, apparently the most sane of all the Le Domas clan, is about to marry Grace. Obviously without notifying the poor woman of what follows, hoping that everything will just be a simple chess game. Again obviously, it's not a simple chess game, and what's next is something like "Hard Target", but without Van Damme and packing much more comedy within ( yeah I know the reference is old, but I'm too ;) ). So, I already spoiled probably the most non-linear part of the movie, therefore, I'll skip the rest of the details. Even though I'm not really into excess red paint scenes, I could say that the movie is impeccably put together, with a special mention on the audio part - the score (Brian Tyler) and the sound editing. I've seen Samara Weaving who's leading the cast here, in a somehow similar role in "Mayhem" (another dark comedy with lots of red paint). I don't know if a couple of years between the movies are enough for a consistent growth in the acting experience, but if there I barely noticed her, here I'll definitely remember her. These being said...

Rating: 4 out of 5