'Ready or Not' movie review: When marriage is murder

Directors: Radio Silence

Cast: Samara Weaving, Adam Brody, Henry Czerny

Score: 3.5

What do you get when you bring together the directors behind V/H/S and a comedy filled with a Satanic cult and murder? Well, while the answer may be elusive, Ready or Not tries its best to answer it.

The story follows Grace, who by no means is a fool. She is to be married to Alex Le Domas, a man who is well-versed with his family's antics, which indeed makes him a fool. After their marriage, Grace is summoned to play a game by creepy auntie Helene, and she, after a lengthy bout of exposition, draws the card "Hide and Seek". Let the games begin!

Ready or Not is a pretty funny movie in a really sickening sort of way. Right from the beginning - after the brutal murder flashback - the film shows that is not one to leave any potential comedy material to waste, so much so that it even takes the whole act of murder lightly, filling it with watery groans and literal beheadings to break the tension and having almost a sadistic sense of humour at treating human lives as a joke.

But it also carries a serious undertone as far as the Le Domas family is concerned. Each and every one of them is aware of and many indeed bring up a Mr Le Bail, a mysterious benefactor who apparently demands a ritual sacrifice of every new bride in exchange for letting the Damon gaming dominion thrive. Gaming here carries a double entendre of course, as the family not only deals in games but also treats their little night hunt as a game.

Ready or Not carries a whole deck - pardon the pun - of nutjob characters. Aside from the creepy aunt, there's the hedonist father, a klutz of a niece, the fat guy, a mother who you think is sweet and nice but is really the worst, an alcoholic son and the goody-two-shoes son.

The murders in the film, though treated as a joke and an everyday thing with this Satanist cult of a family, are very graphic. Right from when the first body falls, the movie makes no exceptions to show the brutality of the act. It really does well to bring up a sense of disdain anyone should realistically feel for a mass-murdering cult. Conversely, the only emotions that can be associated with Grace through the events of the film are shock, sadness, anger and indifference. In that order.

To close, Ready or Not is the best comedy film this year so far that uses murder as its entire subtext. Then again, there's not many of those.