Ready or Not Review

What the fuck is wrong with you, you fucking asshole piece of shit little tiny dick licker fucking asshole fucking die!

With Ready or Not 2: Here I come releasing this week, I thought it was time I revisted the original.

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come Review

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.

Good Points

• Samara Weaving

• Good balance between gore and dark humour

• The family dynamic

• The single-location setting

• Dialogue is dry, and consistently funny

Bad Points

• Some logic stretches are more noticeable on rewatch

The simplicity is the strength.

Nothing really needs to be explained about this movie, because the premise is simple, almost blunt, and that’s enough here - there’s a game, it’s chosen at random, and nobody over-explains why that even matters.

And when the shift happens, you know when everything clicks into place, it’s uncomfortable, where the family’s reaction tells you everything you need to know, and the film just moves forward from there.

Situation presented - tension builds.

That’s it.

It’s a lot of fun

I love how deliberately incompetent the family is, and they’re certainly not a well-oiled machine - they argue, they panic, they make mistakes - and it would’ve been easy to turn them into a clean, efficient threat, but the film goes the other way, and I think that’s why it works, because they are also hilarious.

It all feels very unpredictable at times with them, because there’s no sense of control, it’s just people trying - and failing - to handle something they treat like tradition but clearly aren’t equipped for.

Violence that knows what it’s doing.

There’s an early moment in the film with a weapon that doesn’t behave the way it should, and it sets the tone, so fom that point on, the violence stays messy, abrupt, and funny, and never stops.

I don’t usually enjoy gore for its own sake, but here it’s balanced carefully enough, as it never tips into excess just to shock, because the absurdity of the situation keeps it from doing so, and I really get the sense watching that the film knew exactly how far it could push things without losing me.

It almost seemed quite clever in its simplicity.

Samara Weaving and the family

I think Samara Weaving is brilliant in most things she does, and she is here too, with her character not written as overly capable but also not completely helpless - she adapts, she reacts, and she gets frustrated, and much like a lot of the film, she’s also funny.

While the supporting cast doesn’t get equal depth, they don’t need to either as each family member feels distinct enough to leave an impression, and they all do a brilliant job where some treat the situation like an obligation, others like an inconvenience, and they bring a lot of variety to it all.

It knows exactly what tone it wants.

What I did notice most on rewatching it though was how controlled the tone really is, as it doesn’t swing wildly between horror and comedy, it just stays in that middle space, adjusting slightly depending on the moment.

All the humour comes naturally from the situation rather than forced jokes - dialogue is dry, blunt, and often unintentionally funny - and nobody feels like they’re performing for laughs, which makes it even funnier.

There’s a moment near the end that sums it up perfectly, a line delivered so casually, considering everything that’s just happened, that it almost catches you off guard.

And if you don’t know, that line is the tagline below the title - it’s a brilliantly simple scene.

Final Thoughts

Ready or Not still works, and I am not sure it’s a film I will ever get bored of, and while I don’t think a sequel was needed, if it is half as good as this one, I will be satisfied.