My Review of "Ready or Not"

Ready or Not is a movie that I didn't think I would have watched since I'm catching up on a ton of movies on my watch list. It's a movie about a newlywed couple that has to go through a bizarre and insane family tradition. What I experienced was one of the more original movie concepts that I have seen in a quite some time. I regularly don't watch horror movies but this movie was a pretty good one. It wasn't that scary though.

This movie starts off with a man running for his life in a giant mansion. He's been shot with an arrow and is struggling to run. All of a sudden a kid comes out of nowhere and he starts screaming his location. He then gets shot by another arrow and looks like he's going to die. It's a pretty messed up opening but we get the point. Something bizarre is going on in this house.

30 years later there's a bride to be by the name of Grace. She's beautiful and can't wait to marry her husband to be Alex. The two seem to be deeply in love however Grace is concerned about Alex's family. Alex comes from an extremely rich family and they all seem to act weird around Grace. Grace obviously wants the acceptance of Alex's family and she knows it's going to be tough.

The two eventually get married anyways and all seems to be magical. Little does Grace know, Alex's family have a tradition of playing a game with the newest member of their family. Whenever someone marries into their family they need to play a random game as an initiation.

Trying to gain the acceptance of the family Grace agrees and seems psyched to get the game going. Unfortunately the game that she gets dealt is hide and seek. She's given a certain amount of time to try to hide before the family comes to find her. To make matters worse Grace has no idea that the family's true intention is to kill her when they find her.

First off this movie is utterly insane but fun at the same time. To think that this ultra rich family would have this kind of crazy tradition is bizarre and brilliant at the same time. I've heard of stories about crazy rich families that don't live in the same reality as the rest of the world and this movie kind of takes that concepts and bumps it up to 11. It's such a fun idea because we always idolize the lifestyles of the rich and this twists this idea around.

To add to the entertainment of this movie they gradually reveal the story behind the family ritual. It's absolutely fascinating and I was totally into the lore they put behind it. This brought about a pretty consistent creepy feel to the movie.

Everything was done correctly in this movie. The art direction was magnificent because it puts us in the aesthetic mood of the family traditions. The way they color graded the movie and the settings work perfectly. Even the outfits work really well in conjunction with the story. You can tell that this movie was really well thought out and a lot of work went into the creation of this concept.

Each of the actors did a great job in keeping us wondering what's going to happen next. I have to say I like how they used the character Daniel to make us question what his true intentions were. Each of the actors did a bang up job in keeping the audience bewildered. It also helps that the situations that they get themselves into are crazy and bizarre.

Some of those bizarre moments are pretty comical. There are actually a few laugh out loud moments throughout this movie. Everyone is so eccentric that it's easy for them to find comical situations. It wasn't done in a way where you would lose the horror or creepy aspect of the movie though. It was done sparingly and I loved each moment.

Overall, I think this movie was an incredible surprise. I really enjoyed it more than I thought was going to. Not only is this an absolutely beautiful movie but it's got social commentary of class and it'll keep you at the edge of your seat throughout the playtime. I have to give this movie an 8.5 out of 10. I thought this was an amazing movie and I'm glad I got the chance to check it out. I'll be recommending it to a lot of my friends.