Ready or Not

After some strong but smallish roles in Ash vs Evil Dead and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Samara Weaving gets a lead role and totally kills it in Ready or Not. As Grace, a newlywed who has one of the worst wedding days in cinema history—right up there with Uma Thurman in Kill Bill—Samara is so good it makes you wonder how she hasn’t had more big starring roles in the 11 years she’s been acting. She commands the screen with a fierce, comedic energy that helps make Ready or Not a memorable, if predictable, horror/thriller show. Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, and written by Guy Busick and Ryan Murphy, the movie is a scathing indictment of the rich and the institution of marriage, all in good fun, of course. When we meet Grace (Weaving, niece of Hugo), she’s about to marry Alex Le Domas (Mark O’Brien), and enter into a very rich family. That family, led by Tony (Henry Czerny) and Becky (Andie MacDowell), has built its empire upon board games and sports teams, so their requirement that Grace play a game with them on her wedding night, while wacky, does make a little sense. As part of tradition, Grace must draw a card from a mystery box and determine which game she must play with her new in-laws. The card she draws: Hide and Seek. As it turns out, she would’ve been much better off drawing chess or checkers.