"Ready or Not" - Typical ending to a family game night.

Josh
Jan 13, 2025
5 min read

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin; Tyler Gilett (2019)

Yet to have a game of Monopoly that doesn't end like this.

Watching this now, I try to reflect on what it would’ve been like to watch this when it first came out. In the grand scheme of things it’s not that long ago, only 6 years ago, but since that time, oh boy, has the world changed. Since covid, the gap between the lower and upper class has only grown wider with the middle class slowly disappearing. Leaving everyone below the inflation line angry towards the wealthy. And as movies, especially horror movies, tend to reflect the general feeling of the populous at the time we’ve seen an upward trend of “Eat the Rich” movies. However, most movies that fall within this sub-genre don’t sit right with me. Unless done a particular way, most of the time it feels like wealthy Hollywood people telling me “See we know we're down to Earth like the rest of you, we’re self-aware and dumb.” It just doesn’t feel like it comes from a genuine place. Ready or Not falls within this realm of “Haha look at the dumb rich”, yet the premise and horror comedy aspects were enough to keep this from being painful like some of its contemporaries.

Starring Australian’s Margot Robbie 2.0, Samera Weaving (Relative to the great Hugo Weaving), is a middle-class newly wedded bride, Grace, to a family of wealthy board game tycoons. And as a tradition, they must play a board game with the newest member of the family. As we meet the rest of the family we see the typical characters we get in these eat the rich films. The traditional Father (Henry Czerny), the welcoming slightly dim-witted Mother (Andie MacDowell), the hated child-in-law (Kristian Bruun), the substance-addicted child (Melanie Scrofano), stone stone-cold and family business-focused child (Elyse Levesque) and the strange elder relative (Nicky Guadagni). It felt rather played out and seen before yet we get two characters that stood out the two sons Daniel (Adam Brody) and Alex (Mark O’Brien) who seem to despise the family and the tradition of playing games. The layer of intrigue for me kicked up when the monarch of the family alluded to a family curse, where other members had died if the game with not played correctly before sunrise. Something you brush off as, “Yeah these rich people are crazy.” Even though previous members of the family pulled out innocent games, Grace pulls out Hide and Seek, where she is required to be hunted down and sacrificed by the family.

I will be spoiling the ending, so before you go any further I would recommend checking this out. As the family attempts to hunt down the bride, the family proves themselves to be incompetent as they take out servants and each other. Even with the kills being graphic, the timing and over-the-top nature of the effects gave the deaths a heightened comedic tone. The directors, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillet manage to switch over to pure horror when needed without tonal whiplash. I specifically think of the set piece within the barn. Running into one of the younger children who is attempting to join in on the family antics, they attempt to shoot the bride blasting through her hand. Followed by the child getting comedically punched square in the face in retaliation. But we end the scene with the bride trying to escape her hiding place, a well full of decomposing bodies and animals used in sacrifices, with her holy hand landing piercing a rusty nail. Moving from horrific violence to comedy to visceral body horror, nothing felt out of place.

Whilst the comedy and horror are well executed, Ready or Not isn’t immune to the tropes of horror movies. Throughout the hunt, Grace seems to avoid doing stupid things that are put in the script just so the movie can continue or create fake tension. Yet there were a couple of times when I would be questioning why she wasn’t just doing this action instead of that. For example, the mansion is on full lockdown so she cannot escape the interior, yet I couldn’t help but wonder why she couldn’t just smash a window and run. You could argue that she doesn’t want to make noise but you could stealth break glass with a towel or something. Or to hit another trope, when she does make it outside and hides in the woods, one of the butlers is hot on her trail driving along the roads attempting to look for her. Yet for no reason, he parks the car right in front of where she is hiding and walks into the woods towards her position. There was no reason for him to stop, no clue that indicated she was in that area, he just stops and has a sixth sense for scared brides hiding in the woods.

It was also great to see a vulnerable character grow into someone capable of taking care of business. We see this visually as she starts the night wearing an expensive wedding dress that slowly gets torn up showing her true self underneath. First, represented by a pair of dirty old yellow sneakers to a full torn dirty bloody dress, it felt like a homage and reminder that there is nothing more badass than an angry bride, a la Kill Bill. Although heavy-handed, I wish the characters' visuals carried over to the overall cinematography. There are few moments of inspiration in the visuals but overall it has a highly saturated dark brown and piss yellow colour scheme, like attempting to hit the stylised colour schemes of David Fincher.

What also didn’t work for me was the opening stinger for similar reasons to why I don’t like the opening for Predator (1987) and The Thing (1982). The previously mentioned brothers played witness at a young age their family playing Hide and Seek with the unsuspecting groom. Ratting out his hiding location, causing the death of an innocent man but getting praised by the family. This is repeated with the next generation to ensure the family business and traditions are continued. But I wish this was executed differently so it wasn’t fully obvious that the family was involved in an eyes-wide-shut murder cult. But we discover that the family is off alongside Grace. Something similar would be like the opening of Get Out (2017), which feels so disconnected from the rest of the plot that you almost forget about it until that kidnapped character makes another appearance. But the ending was the cherry on top. The superstitious family keeps mentioning that their fortune came from playing a game that involved some type of deal with the devil-type business. And if their game isn’t won then they will all suffer a horrible death. When the sun rises we’re met with awkwardness as the family is fine. The hunt and needless violence were all for nothing. Only to be interrupted by a Quintin Tarinento level of blood as each family member explodes in front of Weaving.

With the issues that I do have with the movie, it is a good crowd-pleaser. It’s playful and comedic enough that the political message of the evil rich hunting and disregarding the poor isn’t distracting despite my issues with the theme. But it's a movie I would sit amongst some of the better horror modern comedies.