on Ready or Not

The full review will be up on CultofWhatever later this weekend, but in the meantime, here’s a snippet of my review, along with the score…

The premise, as you would expect from a horror movie of this decade, is simple to explain: “You have to play hide and seek but if they find you they kill you.” That’s it. It’s a silly premise that would have had to try very hard to flat-out suck. At worst this movie was only ever going to be just mediocre film, with no crazy twists, bad acting, and an unsatisfying ending.

I am SO glad to see it rise so much higher than that.

Watching it, I managed to be both on the edge of my seat with tension while also smiling at all the insanity. It’s hard to make someone have so much fun while also having so much tension. Most movies of this kind would pace their stories so that the different emotions come in waves: You’d have a big intense scene, then a comedic come-down scene, then it would get intense again, etc.

Not this movie. This movie had, at several points throughout its tensest moments, some genuinely laugh out loud gags. Sometimes it was a one-liner, sometimes just a bit of physical comedy in the background, sometimes it was a combination. The movie was so consistently funny, it might not even be appropriate to call it a “horror” film at all. It’s just a dark comedy that gets gross and has fun with its plot.

I had basically no expectations going in and ended up loving it. Was it high art? No. Was it trying to be? No. Everything is relative when you’re reviewing movies: A 10/10 film like A Star is Born is not the same as a 10/10 black comedy with death and gore and silly stuff, but it’s a 10/10 movie all the same.

10/10 – Sharp writing, fun direction, strong acting, surprises, fun, thrills; for fans of the genre, the movie had it all.