Ready or Not

Marrying into a wealthy family can be plagued with difficulty. For Grace (Samara Weaving), the ceremony seems to have gone fairly well. But that night, there’s a little family ritual that has to be gone through. It seems for the Le Domas family, every new family member has to play a game by drawing a card from a special box. And if that game turns out to be hide and seek, the results are particularly deadly, with every other family member looking to hunt down and kill her before dawn. But Grace turns out to be a much more cunning opponent than the family expects, and events start to escalate as the hunt takes out more than one unsuspecting victim…

This is a dark comedy with a macabre sense of glee, and a genially ruthless way of treating its cast. Its main interest is in playing out variations on the central situation, as Grace avoids perilous death by inches as she works her way around the maze-like mansion, and it becomes increasingly apparent what the penalty for the family might be if they don’t succeed. In a year that’s seen a lot of not-very-subtle metaphors for the shaky groundings of Capitalism, it’s another one, but as a gory frolic (as Weaving’s pristine lace wedding gown accumulates more and more debris), this works quite well. There’s a varied supporting cast, mixed between actors-whose-careers-have-been-quiet-a-while (Henry Czerny, Andie McDowell, Adam Brody) and interesting actors who are less well known (most noticeably the guy who plays Donny, the suburban clone’s husband, in Orphan Black). So recommended for anybody who wants a romp with a bit of gore.