READY OR NOT (2019) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

ready or not (2019) movie

Genre              |   Horror Comedy

Classification   |   MA 15+

Running time   |   95 minutes

Released         |   24 October 2019

cast

Samara Weaving ... Grace
Adam Brody ... Daniel Le Domas
Mark O'Brien ... Alex Le Domas
Henry Czerny ... Tony Le Domas
Andie MacDowell ... Becky Le Domas
Melanie Scrofano ... Emilie
Kristian Bruun ... Fitch Bradley
Nicky Guadagni ... Aunt Helene
​Elyse Levesque ... Charity Le Domas

director

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin
Tyler Gillett ​

writer

​Guy Busick
Ryan Murphy

cinematographer

​Brett Jutkiewicz

music

​Brian Tyler

film editor

​Terel Gibson

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box office result

Worldwide               $​57,615,777

Australia                 $​712,903

North America        $​28,714,231

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movie minutiae

​The Le Domas family's empire of board games is based on now-defunct game manufacturers Milton Bradley Company and Parker Brothers.

​The Pepper Box revolver wielded by Emilie has been the version of the gun weapon in the North American edition of the board game "Clue" since 1972. It was adopted by the European "Cluedo" edition in 1996.

​Seventeen different versions of Grace's wedding dress were created by costume designer Avery Plewes to show the progress of Grace's night and how her clothes correspond to her attitude

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READY OR NOT (2019) MOVIE IMAGES

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READY OR NOT (2019) STORY SYNOPSIS

​Grace couldn't be happier after she marries the man of her dreams at his family's luxurious estate. There's just one catch -- she must now hide from midnight until dawn while her new in-laws hunt her down with guns, crossbows and other weapons. As Grace desperately tries to survive the night, she soon finds a way to turn the tables on her not-so-lovable relatives.

READY OR NOT (2019) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 24 October 2019

Pop ​Movee Rating

READY OR NOT is the most demented version of a family “Get Together” imaginable…

Newlywed bride Grace, played by Australian actress Samara Weaving, is invited to a post-ceremony event at her new in-laws, the well-heeled Le Domas family. Little does she realise, not only is she the guest of honour, she’s the latest in a long line of fresh spouses who’ve been the main attraction in a kill-or-be-killed game of Hide and Seek.

Australian audiences are a little late to this particular game... Elsewhere around the world, audiences have had the chance to see READY OR NOT since the film premiered at the Fantasia Film International Film Festival back in July. Both the critical and Box Office response has been positive. 

The film cost just $6 million to produce and, already, has grossed over $52 million worldwide. Not a bad return-on-investment and very much in keeping with the recent trend of micro-budget Horror films that been produced by Jason Blum.

READY OR NOT isn’t produced by Blum, but it certainly feels as though it could have been made by his production company...

Co-Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett have delivered a tight Horror Thriller that runs an economical 95 minutes, but still manages to provide an equal amount of character and plot. Narrative purists might question some of the story choices from Writers Guy Busick & Ryan Murphy, but there’s nothing that diminishes the film’s overall impact. The premise, a lethal pursuit of Grace by the Le Domas family fulfilling a newlywed tradition, is not original, but framing it against the family’s business - games of chance - provide the antagonists with clear motivation to do their worst.

There’s underlying motivation for the family but the story doesn’t let on right until the very end whether or not the reason for maintaining their tradition is real or imagined.

Collectively, the production team have put on their thinking caps to make sure READY OR NOT doesn’t fall back on Horror tropes, nor become tedious with the manner in which various characters suffer both fatal and non-fatal wounds. 

Visually, the film is vaguely reminiscent of a David Cronenberg movie, where the focus is not on the act of violence itself, but the horror the body endures as a result of violent acts. READY OR NOT is nowhere in the same intellectual league as any of Cronenberg’s films and doesn’t possess the same level of body horror subtext that his works do, but it does have political undertones that speak to the divisions that currently exist within American society.

Like Jordan Peele’s GET OUT (2017), READY OR NOT portrays rich, white people as dog-eat-dog, malicious and just plain evil in the pursuit of prolonging their wealth and power.

Is it true?

A lot of people wouldn’t hesitate to say, yes.

Capitalism has made a lot of people rich, but it’s also exploited many more for the rich to earn their money.

The character of Grace becomes the symbol of the “silent masses”; at first, naively entering into a game of “Hide and Seek”, only to find that she’s nothing more than a sacrifice, in a long history of sacrifices, to keep the Le Domas family in their position of privilege.

Despite having the relative absence of “names” in the cast, the eclectic bunch of performers brought together for READY OR NOT is another key reason why the film succeeds…

Samara Weaving is perfect as Grace. Yes, everyone says she looks like Margot Robbie and the film’s marketing materials put her front and centre and softened her features just enough to make it appear as thought is was Robbie. Another piece of trivia is that she’s the niece of Hugo Weaving! Irrespective of who she looks like or related to, she makes the role of Grace her own. She’s not afraid to get dirty, bloody and violent in aid of self-preservation.

Mark O’Brien is solid as Grace’s new husband, Alex, but he’s a secondary character for much of the film.

Adam Brody is a standout as Daniel, Alex’s brother...

Brody has been around the entertainment industry for nearly twenty-five years and has fashioned a solid career as a character actor. His best known role was on the TV series THE O.C. playing Seth Cohen across all four seasons of the show between 2003 and 2007. Since then, Brody has consistently appeared on both the big and small screen in a broad range of roles. In READY OR NOT, the character of Daniel is completely disillusioned with his life, struggling to reconcile his place in the bizarre group of individuals that constitute his family. Of all the roles in the film, his is the one that actually allows for some genuine acting.

Andie MacDowell plays the family’s matriarch and, as always, she’s as boring as watching paint dry. It’s hard to fathom how MacDowell got her acting break (all the way back in 1984 as Lady Jane Porter in GREYSTOKE: THE LEGEND OF TARZAN, LORD OF THE APES), but it’s even harder to believe how much work she’s had over the years and, even worse, in leading roles. She doesn’t add a great deal to READY OR NOT and is, by far, the weakest performance in the film.

Besides Weaving and Brody, the film’s most memorable performance is delivered by Ncky Guadagni as the visibly demented Aunt Helene. Guadagni’s glowering looks throughout the film’s opening scenes provide a great deal of humour, but also put the audience on notice that there’s some bad intentions simmering just beneath the surface of the Le Domas family.

Guadagni gets a run for her money from WYNONNA EARP star Melanie Scrofano, who plays the off-her-tits, cocaine-snorting sister of Alex and Daniel, Becky…

Becky manages to be the most lethal member of the family, but it’s more bad luck (for those she kills) than either skill or good management!

The film’s MA 15+ rating is limiting for its Box Office appeal, but for Horror fans (or those looking for an above average Thriller) READY OR NOT continues the recent trend of genre reversionism, using the mask of violence to make a far bigger statement about the ongoing disintegration of society, highlighting the zeal with which the “Establishment” is prepared to protect its interests (money) at all costs through a sense of entitlement that operates without any reference to the rest of society.

It’s a smart film that is both dark and funny. It has enough blood to satisfy hard core Horror fans, but doesn’t rely on gore to sell the story.

READY OR NOT MOVIE (2019) USEFUL LINKS

Ready or Not (2019 film) - Wikipedia
​Ready or Not (2019) - IMDb
Ready or Not (2019) - Rotten Tomatoes

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