Ready or Not Red-Band Trailer Makes Murder a Family Game

There’s an interesting sub-genre that’s come back en vogue: “gaming horror,” or horror films that are based on popular games or gaming trends. Into that sub-genre now steps Ready or Not, a horror-thriller that takes the idea of ‘family game night’ to some horrific extremes.

Check out the Ready or Not trailer above, and get the full breakdown of the film, below!

Ready or Not is brought to us by the directorial team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillet, whose previous collaborative effort was the 2014 found-footage horror film, Devil’s Due. The pair also collaborated on a segment on the acclaimed found-footage horror anthology series, V/H/S, and another horror anthology, Southbound. Longtime horror fans probably recognize Olpin and Gillet’s name from their production group, Radio Silence, which they formed in 2011 alongside partner Chad Villela. This will be first major horror film (outside the found-footage sub-genre) that horror fans get to see Olpin and Gillet take on.

So far, Ready or Not looks like the right balance of horror and humor, with what looks to be some nice sly social commentary about economic class, to boot. There’s so many hooks for good subtext, be it the implications of a bride trying to fit in with her new family; the implications of this family’s (the Le Domas family) history of wealth and power; an implied supernatural force or antagonist motivating or coercing the family’s dark, twisted, ritual; and of course, a lot of comedy mined from a group of rich people trying to be killers, and being laughably bad at the job (at the expense of their unlucky servants).

The cast is filled with some familiar character actor faces, most notably Andie Macdowell (Groundhog Day), Adam Brody (Shazam), and Henry Czerny (Sharp Objects), with Samara Weaving (Three Billboards, SMILF) stepping into the lead role as Grace.

You can read the official Ready or Not synopsis below:

“READY OR NOT follows a young bride (Samara Weaving) as she joins her new husband’s (Mark O’Brien) rich, eccentric family (Adam Brody, Henry Czerny, Andie MacDowell) in a time-honored tradition that turns into a lethal game with everyone fighting for their survival.”

Ready or Not hits theaters on August 23rd.