Five years ago this month, a low-budget horror comedy called Ready or Not burst into theaters and made almost 10 times its minuscule $6 million budget. Radio Silence’s Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett co-directed the movie, which led to them helming the two modern Scream films as well as Abigail earlier this year. It was also the first leading role for Samara Weaving.
Weaving plays Grace, a young woman who marries into an affluent family, only to learn shortly thereafter that the family is cursed by a deal they made with the devil centuries earlier. Since Grace inadvertently picked a game of Hide and Seek, the family — including her husband and in-laws — have until dawn to kill her, or else they’ll all die in her place.
To celebrate the fifth anniversary of Ready or Not, we’re taking a look back to see if the film still holds up.
A scream queen is born
The most surprising thing about Ready or Not is that it didn’t thrust Samara Weaving to greater stardom in mainstream Hollywood films. But it did make her a reliable scream queen in other horror flicks including The Babysitter and its sequel, Scream VI, and the upcoming film Azrael.
In her performance as Grace, Weaving has a knack for making her character seem like a genuine person who is thrust into familiar movie tropes. We’ve lost count of how many rom-coms begin with the young bride-to-be trying to win over the affluent family of her fiancé. And when Grace’s dream wedding becomes a horror story, she’s just as convincing as she slowly hardens herself while fighting for her life. Weaving even manages to make Grace funny without losing the inherent jeopardy that her character finds herself in. She carries this movie on her back, and really deserves bigger and better roles in the future.
The supporting cast is terrific
Weaving may carry this movie, but she doesn’t do it alone. The directors surrounded her with a very talented supporting cast, and the script by Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy gives a few of the le Domas family members some much needed humanity — none more so than Adam Brody’s Daniel Le Domas, Grace’s new brother-in-law. He’s burnt out on watching his family commit murder that he’s the only one who openly sides with Grace and tries to help her.
Grace’s husband, Alex (Mark O’Brien), has commitment issues. He seems to love Grace and his family. Alex alternately helps both sides because he feels pinned in by the circumstances. It’s hard to feel too much sympathy for Alex, since he did get Grace into this mess. But at least he shows regret and a real desire to be with her.
Andie MacDowell — who recently celebrated the 35th anniversary of her breakout film, Sex, Lies & Videotape — is delightfully chilly toward Grace as the family matriarch, Becky Le Domas. When it comes to murder, Becky is even more cold-blooded. And perhaps one of the movie’s funniest performances belongs to Melanie Scrofano for her portrayal as Emilie le Domas, the daughter of Becky and sister of Daniel and Alex. Unlike the other members of her family, Emilie is all-too eager to kill, and she’s really bad at murdering her intended target. There’s a lot of dark humor that comes out of that.
Ready or Not turns the class struggle into a life or death battle
In a standard rom-com, Grace couldn’t get her bloody revenge on her groom’s rude family members. That’s just not how those films handle conflict. But as a horror film, Ready or Not lets that familiar class struggle become an actual battle to the death.
That makes it surprisingly cathartic when Grace gets her chance to fight back. Alex’s family may be killers, but Grace is far more than just an easy target. And the audience is on her side every step of the way.
The ending is incredibly audacious
We’re not going to spoil the specifics of Ready or Not‘s ending here. But the film doesn’t exactly hide the ending from the audience. The beginning of the movie sets the stakes, for both Grace and the le Domas family. It’s a death compact with the devil, and that doesn’t leave much room for compromise.
Yet when the end begins, you may start to wonder if the family legend was just a myth. And then things take a turn for the strange and disgusting. That’s when it gets really wild, and delivers a satisfying climax.
It only returns for special occasions
Ready or Not was produced and released by Searchlight Films, subsidy of Disney. The studio should have a home for it on Hulu year-round, but it’s currently only streaming on Fubo. Making it hard to find online isn’t going to help this film’s legacy, especially if fans have to rent or buy Ready or Not just to revisit it.
We’re willing to bet that Ready or Not will be back on a mainstream streaming service by the Halloween season. But if it’s just going to sporadically appear every year, then there’s a strong chance that Ready or Not will be forgotten despite the high quality of the film itself.
Rent or buy Ready or Not on Prime Video.
