Radio Silence has, in recent years, become synonymous with the horror genre, and Ready or Not served as yet another indicator that the collaborative team has an eye for storytelling, character development, and piercing the center of a morally gray world. Taking a children’s game and inserting a horror element into it is nothing new; most slasher films involve some aspect of a cat-and-mouse chase scene.
Centering the entire movie around a young woman playing hide and seek, initially believing it is nothing more than the game it’s been sold as to her, we quickly find out just how threatening this family and the world they reside in is.
Enter a world of wealth and glamour, but don’t look too closely. The Le Domas family, renowned for the games their company has produced over the years, has built up a vast fortune and has a dark secret ritual when new members enter the family. A game is played on the wedding night, and one only hopes that you select any option other than Hide and Seek. Otherwise, you will find yourself on the wrong side of this famed family in the worst way imaginable.
The story opens with a prologue set sometime in the family’s history, never specifying a true date, on the last instance where the family had to play a specific game: Hide and Seek. We are treated to children running around playing the game before a wounded man, Charles (Andrew Anthony), appears, begging for help. Instead, Daniel calls out for the family, resulting in Charles being shot through with a speargun and dragged away. The main story picks up thirty years on the day of another wedding, as Alex (Mark O’Brien), the younger brother of Daniel (Adam Brody) and the estranged son of the Le Domas family, brings his bride Grace (Samara Weaving) into his family. Though he does not believe in the family’s curse or blessings, he still chooses to marry Grace in the center of his family’s empire. It’s not until the wedding night that he even shares the twisted truth, however disbelieving he might have been before about the consequences, Alex still participates.
As the film unfolds, it becomes evident that the Le Domas family has made all of its fortune through this supposed Faustian Deal. Like many horror films, Ready or Not plays coy for much of its runtime, whether or not the supernatural element is real, which benefits the story rather than hinders it. While there are a few glimpses of the figure who made the original deal with the La Domas family, much like The Haunting, it’s a blink-and-you-’ll-miss-it aspect until it finally drives home that this is real. With that in mind, we spend much of the movie watching as Grace attempts to survive what, in her mind, is merely a cultish family trying to murder her. It does not help that the entirety of the staff is in on it, too, meaning that Grace has almost no help once the first body drops.
Grace is initially played as a wide-eyed ingenue who grew up as a foster child, and she is clearly still struggling to accept that the man she married is ridiculously wealthy.
Through her efforts to survive the night, Grace is the most well-developed character in the cast. This is not a knock against the Le Domas family members, who each play their role with varying levels of theatricality. Rather, through her circumstances, Grace must change, or she won’t survive. With around a dozen people hunting her, Grace uses all of her wits to evade them at first. By the time she truly grasps just how dangerous of a situation she’s in, several of the minor characters around her are dead, and Grace begins to actively fight back. While few of the cast die by her hand, each one comes across as well-deserved, and they certainly serve to drive the story towards its chilling conclusion.
The La Domas family is full of personality. While most of them are evil or just plain greedy, they are, first and foremost, a family. That bond is what brings them together during the darker moments of Ready or Not. They quarrel with one another from the moment they’re first introduced, but they act in defense of one another more often than not. The one who feels like he would be the most sympathetic is Alex because of his relationship with Grace. I’ll ignore the fact that he didn’t simply keep her as his long-term girlfriend since, at no point does La Bail’s curse stipulate that this violates the terms and conditions.
Alex’s efforts to aid Grace are lackluster at best and prove to be his undoing by the time the evening has reached its inevitable conclusion.
Instead, the one who turns out to be the most helpful is Daniel, who was introduced as a child calling out for his family, leading to the death of Charles thirty years prior.
Daniel spends much of the early portion of the film nursing a drink all day and evening, clearly disillusioned with everything their family has done to maintain their wealth and status. His wife, Charity (Elyse Levesque), has only married him for his money and is the kind of person who feels like she deserves Hide and Seek rather than Chess. Of course, while we know little to nothing about Charles’ character, it is possible that he was kind and caring, like Grace. Essentially, they are the kind of people who would not willingly continue the deal that La Bail made with the Le Domases generations ago.
Emilie (Melanie Scrofano), Alex and Daniel’s younger sister, more interested in drugs than focusing on the task at hand, is the one who causes much of the damage to their efforts throughout the night. If not for her, it may have taken Grace far longer to realize she was in danger. Still, she is clearly favored over her brothers by both of their parents. Her husband, Fitch Bradley (Kristian Bruun), and two children, Georgie (Liam MacDonald) and Gabe (Ethan Tavares), serve to fill out the family and show just how vast and depraved their efforts are. Georgie and Gabe eagerly look forward to hunting Grace down well before the type of game she must play is even known. Fitch is one of the more comedic characters in the film, trying and failing to figure out how to use a crossbow for so long that he manages to kill literally nobody. Through his own general incompetence and inattentiveness, Fitch costs the Le Domas family more opportunities to kill Grace than literally anybody else.
The previous generation of Le Domases are Tony (Henry Czerny), Becky (Andie MacDowell), and Helene (Nicky Guadagni), all of whom are very much invested in seeing Grace die. Well before they start fumbling with the attempt, Helene is the most gung ho to kill Grace, as Charles from the prologue was her husband, and his death – which she attempted to prevent – cemented in her that the ritual must occur. As the night wears on, Tony and Becky become a nightmare for Grace, even if neither is more effective than the rest of their family. It says something that the one who manages to land a lasting wound on Grace is a literal child. Becky, especially, despite having married into the family, has a better read on how they’ll handle the night than everybody else, correctly calling that Alex will choose them over Grace in the end.
The rest of the supporting cast are the staff – led by the butler, Stevens (John Ralston), and three maids, Clara (Hanneke Talbot), Tina (Celine Tsai), and Dora (Daniela Barbosa). Of them, Stevens is the only one who initially knows what is going on. At the same time, the maids think that the family is hunting them for a portion of the evening.
With Emilie killing two of them by accident, it’s not entirely hard to imagine why. It does not help that the family treats each of their deaths as minor inconveniences than anything else.
Ready or Not is a horror film with massive comedic elements woven into it. Watching a group of wealthy elites try and fail to kill one person who lacks the survivalist training of a certain final girl from You’re Next or decades of experience like Sidney Prescott is quite simply hilarious. With a sequel purportedly on the way, one can only imagine what will happen and whether or not it will take the path of The Babysitter 2 and grant the Le Domas family a second chance.
Lloydd Marshall Books 