Ready or Not
Fox Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: August 21, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
64
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
26
Mixed:
10
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
We Got This CoveredMatt DonatoSep 3, 2019
Ready Or Not is an exquisite horror comedy heavy on familial dysfunction, heavier on gameplaying brutality, and always a reminder that Samara Weaving deserves to be the biggest of megastars. Read full review
91
ConsequenceMeagan NavarroAug 20, 2019
Clever mythos and well-crafted chills with an expertly-paced narrative makes for a deliciously entertaining, late summer crowd pleaser. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerAug 20, 2019
Ready or Not is the film everyone had hoped for: scathing, bloody, funny, and hugely entertaining. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperAug 21, 2019
Ready or Not is a warped and audacious and absolutely ridiculous slapstick gorefest. The gross-out visual punchlines might have you doubling over with laughter. Or gagging to the point where you’ll regret ordering those nachos. Or both. Read full review
83
The Film StageBrian RoanAug 20, 2019
The tone management in this film is remarkable, and the blur of the absurd and the real is such that both the horror, the drama, and the comedy is kept on a dizzying high wire. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattAug 20, 2019
So come for the crossbows, etc., and to watch Weaving’s star be born in real time; stay for the socio-economic lessons and sweet, sweet revenge. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Simran HansOct 3, 2019
There is an elegance to the premise – an otherwise straightforward cat-and-mouse chase around a gothic mansion – and a satisfying clip to the rewardingly gory action. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerSep 16, 2019
Anchored by a dazzling turn by Samara Weaving, Ready Or Not brilliantly fuses thrills, satire, laughs and horror. Don’t count to 100 — just go and see. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Angelica Jade BastienAug 22, 2019
At its best, the movie is a vicious, richly funny, and artfully brutal tale that places Weaving’s performance as its gravitational center. She lends Grace a scrappy, sharp energy that beguiles. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeAug 14, 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. Read full review
76
IGNMatthew DoughertyAug 21, 2019
This is an entertaining game of tension and gore with a strong funny bone, all in a well-wrapped package clearly designed with surprising thought and artistic effort with a star-making performance for Samara Weaving. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenJan 13, 2022
Ready or Not works best as a black comedy about how far the obscenely rich will go to keep what they (undeservedly) have. Read full review
75
The Associated PressMark KennedyAug 22, 2019
It’s a well-plotted film that excellently mixes gore and humor while also offering some social commentary by torching the clueless rich. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliAug 20, 2019
Ready or Not can be described as the fusion of dark comedy with the Grand Guignol. Unafraid to venture into cinematic taboo territory for its shocks and laughs, the movie doesn’t have many sacred cows. It’s the kind of thing we might have gotten if Monty Python had made a gothic-tinged horror movie. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzAug 20, 2019
Despite its sometimes overwhelming sense of familiarity – including a conceit that feels lifted from last year’s Game Night, an impossible feat given both productions’ development timelines – Ready or Not is still energetic, inventive and bloody enough to permissibly coast on its influences’ fumes. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comScout TafoyaAug 20, 2019
The film is charismatic and thrilling enough to bypass its shortcomings. Read full review
75
IndieWireDavid EhrlichAug 14, 2019
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. Read full review
72
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeAug 14, 2019
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. Read full review
70
The AtlanticDavid SimsAug 22, 2019
The real fun in Ready or Not comes from the ways it subverts its time-tested story, balancing wry commentary and straightforward horror in its portrait of fumbling arrogance and curdled privilege. Read full review
70
Rolling StonePeter TraversAug 22, 2019
The wow factor of Ready or Not helps you jump the hurdles of any plot predictability. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzAug 21, 2019
This isn’t a great horror movie so much as a fun thrill ride. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett know just how to put Weaving’s talents to good use. Read full review
70
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisAug 20, 2019
It’s Weaving who gives this blunt satire of class warfare a heart. Read full review
67
UproxxVince ManciniJan 2, 2020
It’s the concept we need right now, with an execution that’s sometimes lacking. Like slaying the rich with a rusty guillotine. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerAug 19, 2019
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. Read full review
66
Paste MagazineDom SinacolaAug 22, 2019
Ready or Not revels in expectations—it’s a survival thriller, dark comedy, gross-out revenge splatterfest—but rarely exceeds them, treading well through each genre signifier, as suspenseful and funny and violent as any one of us could hope. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineKeith WatsonAug 20, 2019
Only in its giddily gory finale does the outrageousness of the film's violence come close to matching that of its plot. Read full review
60
Total FilmJames MottramSep 25, 2019
Not subtle (and might put you off getting hitched), but hits its mark with baseball-bat force. Read full review
60
VoxAlissa WilkinsonAug 22, 2019
Ready or Not takes its name from a game, an amusement for children, but it has something to say about some very grown-up concerns. And it’s both fun and deadly serious. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfAug 16, 2019
As games go, this one’s a little too easy to outfox, but it’s worth playing if you need a quick diversion, or if the chess moves of The Favourite felt overly vicious—Ready or Not is pure checkers. Read full review
60
Screen DailyTim GriersonAug 14, 2019
Although directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett do a good job executing tense suspense sequences, neither the satire nor the setup is particularly convincing. What we’re left with is some nifty cinematic gamesmanship which is not as politically astute as it thinks it is. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeAug 14, 2019
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. Read full review
58
The PlaylistBradley WarrenJul 29, 2019
With the bar for breakout genre flicks being set so high in recent years, one can’t help but feel that Radio Silence is capable of something more substantial and memorable in its craft. Like most of Grace and Alex’s wedding gifts, Ready or Not is certainly diverting but hardly essential. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKatie WalshAug 19, 2019
While the mocking tone mostly undermines any trenchant commentary, the strongest impression Ready or Not leaves, thanks to Weaving’s eye-rolling, primal-screaming, evil-giggling performance, is of the cathartic, transformative female rage at the center of it all. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsAug 19, 2019
Its pace is oddly arrhythmic and the tone is every which way but assured. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternAug 22, 2019
It’s all B-movie stuff, though sporadically entertaining and occasionally witty on the intertwined subjects of bedevilment and in-laws. Read full review
40
The GuardianBenjamin LeeAug 20, 2019
As a comedy, it’s simply not funny and as a horror, it works better in pieces but not with the consistency a film set over one night would require. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreAug 20, 2019
Ready or Not is a “Get Out” that doesn’t quite get it, a “Purge” that pulls its most important punches. Read full review
25
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanAug 20, 2019
The dialogue is less than sparkling, and what passes for witty repartee is mainly a barrage of sarcastically delivered f-bombs and such insults as “gold-digging whore.” The style of acting would, at a sporting event, merely be called shouting. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonAug 20, 2019
The problem with Ready or Not is that directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (“V/H/S”) don’t know what kind of movie they want to make, or what to do with their heroine. There are constant shifts in tone — is it a comedy, like the trapped-in-a-mansion “Murder By Death”? A satire on the rich? A kick-ass revenge picture? Read full review
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