Dan’s Quarantine Theatre, Vol. 3: Electric Boogaloo

Ready or Not

Image: Blumhouse

Damn but Blumhouse is good at making horror flicks. No wonder their founder, Jason Blum, has three Best Picture Oscar nominations to his name (Get Out, Whiplash, and BlackKklansman, all of which are personal favourites). This is the second of these blogs in a row to sing the praises of a Blumhouse movie and there’s gonna be another, let me tell you.

Ready or Not stars Samara Weaving, an Australian actress who I’d only seen in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, in a role small enough I legit don’t remember who she was, but has built a resume that makes me think I should keep an eye on her. Weaving plays Grace, who has just married into a rich family whose wealth came from playing cards and board games, thanks to a deal an ancestor struck. And as part of that deal, each time someone marries into the family, at midnight on their wedding night, they have to play a game. Maybe whist, maybe checkers… just hope that it isn’t Hide and Seek, because they play a much higher-stakes game of Hide and Seek than you’re ready for. In that they will kill you if they find you.

So it’s clear what random game Grace draws, right? Like, if she drew Operation or poker there wouldn’t be a movie. (Strip poker, between Weaving and The OC’s Adam Brody, maybe would have brought in a crowd. Also Andie MacDowell and Henry Czerny ain’t looking half bad neither… okay this is a ridiculous digression and I’m moving on.)

In the hands of a lesser filmmaker [looks directly at Rob Zombie, clears throat] Grace would suffer a bunch of torment then get murdered by her cackling in-laws. Thankfully, Ready or Not manages two much-appreciated twists. First, Grace is a survivor, and is not particularly easy to murder; second, this specific family tradition doesn’t come up very often, maybe once in several decades, so this family is not good at murder. Like, entertainingly bad at murder. And Grace’s new husband has, let’s call it conflicted feelings about his bride being killed, so that’s an issue.

But some details about the deal that helped make the family rich means that both sides are, as far as they know, fighting for their lives, and it’s a hell of a fight.

I don’t want to say more. There are twists and turns and laughs and genuine suspense that you should really experience for yourselves, and the final shot was incredibly satisfying.

Anyway, give it a watch if you’re able. And I should find a way to see Samara Weaving opposite Daniel Radcliffe in Guns Akimbo. Or check out Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood.

Anyhoo, with the annual Comic TV Awards coming next week, I guess we have superheroes to discuss, so let’s do that.

Next Page: The Runaways that don’t have Joan Jett

Author: danny_g

Danny G, your humble host and blogger, has been working in community theatre since 1996, travelling the globe on and off since 1980, and caring more about nerd stuff than he should since before he can remember. And now he shares all of that with you.

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