Control Reviews: Ready or Not

I, Dalton Lewis, watched the movie Ready or Not with a friend last weekend. I didn’t have a chance to write a review at the time as I was busy screaming at the walls and having a series of mentally ill episodes. I also wrote blog entries about my fucked-up life. Now it has been a week, and I can write a reasonable review of the movie.

It stars Samara Weaving as a young bride about to marry a kind, rich man who is a part of a gaming conglomerate. His family makes board games, video games, and the like, and makes millions doing it. When she gets married the family tells her that they need to play a game on the night of the wedding. They get hide and seek as the game, and if she is found, they need to kill her. If they don’t kill her there will be dire consequences.

Much of the action is infused with comedic elements, but the director intelligently avoids comedy that would make the movie less scary. I appreciate when humor adds something to a serious movie instead of a movie that is simply a stupid farce with no real stakes. Movies that abandon reality in favor of a joke-world don’t impress me. Jokes that show how fucked up the world is — super.

Adam Brody plays one of the family members and basically plays a dark, sardonic, clever man who finds himself stuck in an unwinnable situation with his family. He deals with his situation with self-effacing wit and admirable character. I was impressed with his performance in a part that other actors would not have made as relatable.

The main character — the bride — shows us how to make a female main character in a horror film. She shows intelligence like Sidney in the Scream series. She is pretty but doesn’t care about that. She fights to the best of her ability and handles everything with confidence and aggression.

What is the point of the film? I don’t really know. I sometimes like stories to have deep irony and satire and literary elements. I suppose that this movie can say something about how desperate we as a society are to succeed and make it in life. We will risk any piece on the board to take the queen, right?

Horror movies make me feel something primal, something important, something that takes me beyond a simple story and to somewhere primal. I need to feel that. I need to feel something about a work of art, and I can say that this film made me feel something. It may not have double irony, but a movie about people desperate to make money does say something about America right now — so good for them.

Thanks, and take care, friends.