MOVIE REVIEW: Ready Or Not
(Rain - Michael Mucklow)
As a rule, I don't do horror movies. The world has enough horrible stuff in it without needing to make new stuff up. Horror flicks usually try to scare you along the way too, and that's not really my bag either. When a good friend of mine asked me if I wanted to go see Ready Or Not, I balked a little. He persisted, and asked me to reserve judgement until I'd watched the trailer:
Now, while the trailer started out as typical horror fare, it rapidly progressed into something closer to dark humor, which I can tolerate in certain circumstances. After a little more brow-beating from my friend, and the promise that I could hold his hand during the scary parts, I agreed to go.
Was it any good?
THE SHORT VERSION:
Yeah, actually. Much better than I thought it was going to be.
THE LONG VERSION:
There's not much lead-up that needs to be done to discuss this flick. The premise is right there in the trailer in all its preposterousness. The calmer parts of the movie are filled with surprisingly clever dialogue and some of the movie's funniest moments are thrown in to help balance out some of what would otherwise be the most tense scenes. Humor was used to keep the film from getting too serious, which was really pleasant, actually. The film itself is pretty cut and dry in this respect, and there's not much in it that you don't see coming. That said...I left the theater very, very disappointed.
The writers for this movie needed to have more faith in themselves. The premise of the movie, the script, and the set pieces were more than enough to make a genuinely entertaining movie that was full of equal parts suspense and laugh-out-loud humor. As is frequently the case with movies like this, they went and spoiled the whole thing with way too much gore. Here are just a few examples:
- There are several quick deaths that start on-screen and then very quickly get yanked off-screen. That's fine for pacing, and the deaths themselves were quite funny, but then a lot of the humor got squashed beneath the gory reveal of the body, complete with unnecessary close-ups and death rattles from the victims. None of that was necessary. They could have simply alluded to the carnage or used field of view focusing tricks to show the body without reveling in the gore.
- The main character obtains two very notable injuries during the course of the film. Neither are necessary at all to carry the story, and both injuries are repeatedly shown in close detail.
- The slow death of someone in a dumbwaiter could easily have been done with sounds and a few jump-cuts. It didn't need a long take.
- The film's climax is FULL OF GORE. While it bears the virtue of being outstanding shock value and more than a little humorous after everything else, it shifts the film completely into a different realm of believability and seriousness. Darkly entertaining? Sure. In service to the story? Sort of no, actually.
This is a film that had everything, EVERYTHING it needed to be a completely entertaining movie without going over the line at all. It's not spoiled by all of the gore, per se, but it could have been much more appealing to a much wider audience without it. A shame, really...
As a rule, I don't do horror movies. The world has enough horrible stuff in it without needing to make new stuff up. Horror flicks usually try to scare you along the way too, and that's not really my bag either. When a good friend of mine asked me if I wanted to go see Ready Or Not, I balked a little. He persisted, and asked me to reserve judgement until I'd watched the trailer:
Now, while the trailer started out as typical horror fare, it rapidly progressed into something closer to dark humor, which I can tolerate in certain circumstances. After a little more brow-beating from my friend, and the promise that I could hold his hand during the scary parts, I agreed to go.
Was it any good?
THE SHORT VERSION:
Yeah, actually. Much better than I thought it was going to be.
THE LONG VERSION:
There's not much lead-up that needs to be done to discuss this flick. The premise is right there in the trailer in all its preposterousness. The calmer parts of the movie are filled with surprisingly clever dialogue and some of the movie's funniest moments are thrown in to help balance out some of what would otherwise be the most tense scenes. Humor was used to keep the film from getting too serious, which was really pleasant, actually. The film itself is pretty cut and dry in this respect, and there's not much in it that you don't see coming. That said...I left the theater very, very disappointed.
The writers for this movie needed to have more faith in themselves. The premise of the movie, the script, and the set pieces were more than enough to make a genuinely entertaining movie that was full of equal parts suspense and laugh-out-loud humor. As is frequently the case with movies like this, they went and spoiled the whole thing with way too much gore. Here are just a few examples:
- There are several quick deaths that start on-screen and then very quickly get yanked off-screen. That's fine for pacing, and the deaths themselves were quite funny, but then a lot of the humor got squashed beneath the gory reveal of the body, complete with unnecessary close-ups and death rattles from the victims. None of that was necessary. They could have simply alluded to the carnage or used field of view focusing tricks to show the body without reveling in the gore.
- The main character obtains two very notable injuries during the course of the film. Neither are necessary at all to carry the story, and both injuries are repeatedly shown in close detail.
- The slow death of someone in a dumbwaiter could easily have been done with sounds and a few jump-cuts. It didn't need a long take.
- The film's climax is FULL OF GORE. While it bears the virtue of being outstanding shock value and more than a little humorous after everything else, it shifts the film completely into a different realm of believability and seriousness. Darkly entertaining? Sure. In service to the story? Sort of no, actually.
This is a film that had everything, EVERYTHING it needed to be a completely entertaining movie without going over the line at all. It's not spoiled by all of the gore, per se, but it could have been much more appealing to a much wider audience without it. A shame, really...
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