Everyone remembers playing the classic childhood game hide and seek. I would scour the house looking for the perfect hiding spot and plop myself in whatever cabinet or underneath whatever bed. Then, I would sit silently (as silently as any child can) and hope that no one would ever find me. Inevitably, my amazing hiding spot was always discovered, and with that came a sense of relief that I didn’t have to cram myself into the tiny space in which I’d found myself. This couldn’t be further from the truth for Grace, the lead character of Ready or Not. After marrying into the Le Domas family, she finds herself stuck in a game of hide and seek. In this version of hide and seek, however, the family members try to find and kill her before sunrise to ensure their wealth stays theirs. This is because their grandfather made a deal with a mysterious man that, in exchange for their wealth, they would have to play a game at midnight when a family member was married.

As Grace realizes the mess she has gotten herself into, she quickly shifts her mindset by putting on converse and ripping her dress to make it easier to run. As the film progresses, it is easy to see that despite having played this game before, the family is really bad at it. Realistically, a sizeable family should easily be able to find and hunt down a single girl. Instead, the family is comically horrible at it. Fanning at every chance they get. Don’t get me wrong, Grace is cunning and quick on her feet, but the family almost makes it too easy for her to survive the night.

The family's first mistake comes as Clara, one of Le Domas’s maids as Clara is walking around the house when, suddenly, a shot rings out. Emilie, Grace’s new sister-in-law, thinks she has shot Grace but quickly realizes she’s killed one of their maids. I feel like it should be hard to shoot the wrong person, especially when they don’t even have the same hair color or outfit, but apparently not. The family immediately scolds Emilie, telling her she’s an idiot and that she was only supposed to maim her because they need her alive for the ritual.

Then comes mistakes number two and three. Emilie, yet again, ruins the family’s chance at capturing Grace by shooting wildly at her and missing every single time because she had just gotten high. By the time the family regroups to make a new plan, Emilie, newly armed with a crossbow, kills another maid when she accidentally shoots her in the mouth. I feel like, at this point, Emilie should really just be sat down and told to stay put because she’s a bigger hindrance than a help.

Eventually, Grace stumbles upon Georgie, her new nephew. She attempts to reason with him, but he shoots her instead. Only in this instance, she is shot in the hand because, once again, this family is terrible at this game. Kudos to the kid, I guess. He was the first one to actually injure the target.

As the cycle continues of someone finding her and her getting away, the family eventually gets lucky and is able to capture her. Daniel, her brother-in-law, helps her to escape by poisoning the family, but not enough to kill them. Along the way, they are stopped by Charity, Daniel’s wife, but yet again, Grace is able to escape by pistol-whipping her in the face. Then when Becky, Grace’s mother-in-law, gets her shot, she unsurprisingly misses. Even in the end, when they think they finally have her, the curse takes over and rips that chance right out from under them.

While it’s apparent Emilie is the one that really ruins it for the family, time and time again, there is not a single person that succeeds when it comes to killing Grace. Every time the opportunity arises, someone makes a dumb decision that I can only describe as a mistake only exorbitantly rich people who have never done anything for themselves would make. Money truly can only get you so far in life.

Writer: Olivia Madrid

Artist: Sophia Jusino

Tags: Ready or Not, Movies, Dark Comedy, Horror, Olivia Madrid, Sophia Jusino