Ready Or Not is a gleefully violent and wildly entertaining slasher-flick despite some minor shortcomings.

Ready or Not’s trailer promised a guilty pleasure of a movie rife with thrills, blood, gore,  and comedy. It manages to do just that as Samara Weaaving’s Grace is forced to play a terrifying game of ‘Hide and Seek’ as part of her initiation into the Le Domas family.

Smoothly alternating between naive vulnerability and sheer determination, Samara Weaving makes for a great Scream Queen. The ultra-rich Le Domas family constitute the pack of hunters/seekers, armed with a motley array of antique weapons including ornate rifles and crossbows. There is a hilarious scene when the son-in-law excuses himself to use the restroom and watches a tutorial video on how to use crossbows. His junkie wife is equally funny as she inadvertently recreates Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None by accidentally killing off the housemaids one by one. Mark O’Brien is convincing as the husband forced to watch his newlywed wife being hunted by his family, while his brother (Adam Brody) impresses as a guy torn between his sensibilities and family values. The entire cast embraces their caricature-ish roles with so much gusto that it makes the movie so much more entertaining.

With a taut runtime of just over 90 minutes, Ready or Not has no problems in maintaining its suspense factor throughout the movie. I found Ready or Not similar to the brilliant Get Out, not just because both protagonists have to escape from their highly dysfunctional in-laws. Like in Jordan Peele’s Get Out, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett offer relevant social commentary amidst all the carnage, the most important of it being the evils of patriarchy and the questionable things we do in the name of family. Whatever perceived shortcomings the movie might have, Ready or Not is a wildly entertaining slasher flick.