Tag Archives: Get Out

Ready or Not Brings the Cathartic Laughter

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Ready or Not, a film directed by the relatively unknown Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, is a big foam middle finger to the wealthy and conservative elite that are running our country. It’s the kind of film that steadily, and humorously, builds to a cathartic release of anger and frustration in the form of violent comeuppance that will make you want to literally stand up and clap like a fool. It’s exactly the kind of movie you need after a hard, long news day (AKA every day).

The film follows Grace (played by the underrated…actually maybe ‘not yet rated’ is a better term, Samara Weaving) as she prepares to marry Alex Le Domas, he of the “richer than God” Le Domas family whose wealth is built around a board game monopoly (not the board game, Monopoly, but a monopoly OF board games). Oh and also funded by a dead spirit named Mr. Le Bail, minor detail.

Except it isn’t!  Because per the deal that great-grandad Le Domas made with Le Bail, the obscene wealth and success of the family will only continue to be passed down through the generations under one stipulation, anyone who marries into the family MUST have a game night with the family on the night of their wedding.

GASP! BUT THAT’S WHEN THE COUPLE IS SUPPOSED TO BE BANGING FOR THE “FIRST” TIME!

(Alas, those of us who are married know that’s not how it really works. I, for one, beat my wife at Mario Kart the night we tied the knot. That’s…that’s not a joke.)

Back to the plot! Not only does the newly married person have to play a game with their new family but there’s a slight chance that the person will have to be sacrificed to Satan if they draw the wrong card. The ‘hide and seek’ card to be exact. Talk about drawing a bad hand.

Of course Grace pulls the hide and seek card because otherwise the movie would be pretty dull if we just watched a rich family beat each other at checkers for two hours. And now she must deal with the consequences of drawing the worst hand (outside of a 2 and 7 off suit in hold ‘em of course) by hiding while the family loads up guns and crossbows.

Except there is one small detail, SHE DOESN’T KNOW THE CONSEQUENCES. That’s right, the dude she loves decided to buy a ring, pop the question, spend thousands of dollars on flowers, and decides it’s not important to inform his soon to be wife that she is soon to be dead! Men, am I right?

Grace is left to her own devices and has to learn to traverse the many hidden passages of the unfamiliar Le Domas mansion. Luckily for her the Le Domas’ incompetence is threatening to derail their home field advantage.

That’s right, there are four things that makes this movie worth giving up two hours of your life for: a simple and engaging premise that delivers numerous scenes of true terror and intensity and is balanced by a self-awareness of its own ridiculousness. But the best aspect is that the old white rich family is completely daft and hopeless.

Many horror movies build themselves around a villain that is unconquerable. And why not? What’s scarier than true hopelessness? What sets Ready or Not apart is the villains are truly terrible. Both morally and murder skills wise. You laugh as these numbskulls, born with silver spoons in their asses, bumble around the house possibly more terrified than the person being hunted. You laugh because it feels far more realistic that a rich person who doesn’t even do their own laundry or fill their own gas, can’t manage to hunt down a small, unarmed woman.

The wealthy family being ill-equipped at murder brings a sense of humor that connects directly with the endorphins in your brain. It allows the audience to point and laugh at the helpless rich people, it provides a rare sense of power over those who control our world if only for two brief hours. It’s dark humor, sure, but it’s also good humor. In an alternate universe without Get Out and Us, Ready or Not is the horror movie you would have thought was directed by Jordan Peele because it feels like an expanded Key and Peele skit mixed with the deeper meanings of Peele’s real work.

The beauty of Ready or Not is it brings a sense of relief to the audience. It doesn’t bother with subtext or allegories because it is glaringly obvious what the writers are trying to say: rich people don’t play by the same rules and they would rather sacrifice your life than lose their power. And this overt message mixed with the cathartic release of the climax provides EXACTLY what we as an audience need in this day and age, a good laugh and a giant middle finger to the man.

Us

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Us, filmmaker Jordan Peele’s second feature film, is a well-crafted, modern thriller that hits all of the horror beats. The film starts off as a normal home-invasion story and then somehow seamlessly works in grand conspiracy theories without disconnecting from reality. Most importantly, it’s a film that demands an instant rewatch to fully grasp the story as well as catch all the little moments and the underlying metaphors.

If you were to strip this film of the unique and haunting story you would still have a masterclass of film making to watch. From the first moment Peele’s craft is instantly on display with the opening time-establishing shot of an old TV playing a Hands Across America ad. It’s a simple moment that ends up establishing more of the plot than seems possible.

It’s still 1986 and we jump to little Adelaide’s night at the Santa Cruz amusement park. Her father wins her a Michael Jackson Thriller t-shirt and then her parents bicker and eventually become distracted. This leads to Adelaide wandering off by herself into the dark California beach. A wandering child in the dark is stressful enough but then Adelaide finds herself exploring a classic horror movie trope, a house of mirrors. And despite the classic setup, Peele finds a way to make these moments fresh, tense, and instantly memorable. An incident occurs. An incident I cannot spoil but one that is an instant classic and that sets the entire movie in motion.

And now that the entire audience is unsettled Peele doesn’t let off. The title sequence, seemingly simple, establishes the tension and the upcoming oddities with a purely haunting score and a mesmerizing visual aid. Within the first 15 minutes of the movie you are hooked and buckled up for the worst.

Unfortunately from there the film dips into standard thriller fodder. It fast forwards to modern day and presents a normal family, Adelaide, now played by Lupita Nyong’o, has grown up to be a nervous but loving mother and is married to a man that fully embraces his dad joke role in life. They have a preteen daughter, ears buds firmly entrenched, and a son that is still filled with imagination and has a belief in magic. They are staying in their summer vacation house in Santa Cruz, returning to the site of Adelaide’s “incident”. Only Adelaide’s family does not yet know what happened on the beach in 1986.

The family is enjoying their time before a group of four people show up unannounced in their driveway. Unfortunately that’s as deep into the story I can go without spoiling the good parts. Just know at this point the film goes into full thriller mode which is heart-pounding but filled with moments that are expected and not exactly memorable. Luckily even in the cliche and normal beats, the film is anchored by Lupita Nyong’o’s captivating performance of a woman who steps up to kick ass to, seemingly, protect her family.

(To illustrate just how much ass she kicks, at some point Adelaide gets out of the car to check on one of the many murderous attackers she is fighting. This is a classic, “WHY ARE YOU GETTING OUT OF THE CAR” moments that your brain loves to hate in horror movies. Except in this case your brain is like, “Actually no, Adelaide’s got this”.)

In between all the high tension thriller action, the film does bounce back and forth between 1986 and the modern day to fill some of the narrative gaps but still leaves a few frustrating questions at the end. By the end of the film I’m not confident that Adelaide’s character arc tracks completely and it feels like we were missing a few scenes that would have been connective tissue or further clues to explain our protagonist’s life. Although even as I write this I will admit this is a minor complaint and there is the possibility that a rewatch will satisfy my qualms.

And minor qualms is really all I can complain about because between this stylistic thriller hitting all of the established beats and a script that, much like Get Out, is tightly written and hardly contains a wasted moment, it’s difficult to determine if Jordan Peele is a more skilled director or writer. In fact that might be Peele’s biggest accomplishment in his short filmmaker career. It almost seems impossible for one guy to be so good so quickly.

Us is a film that you will want to come back to. It’s memorable and important just like Get Out, however it is more tense and it’s themes more understated than Peele’s first film. Get Out was in your face, screaming it’s themes at you to grab your attention. It had to be. And now that Peele has your attention, Us unequivocally proves he deserves it.