Ready or Not (2019)

The violence here is so over-the-top that it can lapse into comedy, prompting shocked laughter when certain characters are unexpectedly killed, and again when it comes time to dispose of their bodies, none of which can adequately prepare you for the film’s explosively funny finale.

If Ready or Not never quite feels like a cult classic in the making — the scares are soft, the imagery is familiar, and the ending is so batshit that it confirms your nagging sense that the previous 90 minutes were holding back — it’s still wickedly entertaining from start to finish, and painted with enough fresh personality to resolve into something more than the sum of its parts.

Miscalculations aside, however, there’s a brutal wit and audacity to Ready or Not that makes it feel one-of-a-kind in an increasingly safe mainstream marketplace.

The charitable reading is that Ready Or Not understands how moneyed entitlement knows no gender — that the only way to break the arbitrary yet destructive grasp of the super-rich is to chop it off, or possibly light it on fire. So no, not a subtle movie. But a fairly satisfying one.

Ready has a fine time with its setting (the trappings of old money are much more appealing here than they were in Netflix's Murder Mystery), and Weaving is sharp enough to play things straight as the ensemble around her goes for the occasional laugh.