Ready Steady Go

We almost missed Ready or Not (2019) because I had it confused with all the other Game Night type movies going around. This one is a stronger brew.

It starts with two boys playing a game of hide and seek in a mansion with the grownups. Right away, the movie tips it’s hand - this is the most dangerous game, and if the hider is caught, he dies.

Years later, Samara Weaving is marrying wealthy Mark O’Brien, one of the boys all grown up. He is taking her to the family mansion to play the family game. The family fortune is based on board games, and anyone who joins the family has to play a game, chosen at random. What she doesn’t know is that if hide and seek comes up, the new family member must be sacrificed.

So there’s a lot of fun running around as Weaving slowly figures out the stakes for this game. The family seeking her is a bunch of upper-class twits. Our favorite was Melanie Scrofano, who tended to be more dangerous to her own side than to Weaving. Oddly, this reminded us of Miguel Ferrer from DeepStar Six. In another odd coincidence, someone is bisected by door in this movie too.

This isn’t just a comedy-thriller - it gets into horror territory. Maybe not quite as far as Midsommar, which has a similar philosophy. Semi-spoiler, Weaving gets shot through the hand, falls into a pits of fresh goat carcasses and old human bones, then hangs from a nail through the hole in her hand - it’s pretty intense. There’s also a few she’s-getting-away-oops-they-got-her-back moments.

But, like Midsommar, it all ends happily. Enjoy!