--- title: "Read or Not" subtitle: "Wedding horror" author: Seth publish_date: 2025-07-22 08:00 date: 2025-07-22 08:00 hero_classes: text-light title-h1h2 overlay-dark-gradient hero-large parallax hero_image: film-1600x800.webp show_sidebar: true show_breadcrumbs: true show_pagination: true taxonomy: category: culture tag: [ movie, cinema, horror, review ] --- I recently saw the movie **Read or Not** (2019), and these are my notes about it. This isn't a review, it's honestly just so I remember what the movie was about 3 months from now. This post does contain spoilers. A young couple go to the groom's family home for their wedding ceremony. There, the bride is told that it's a tradition for the family to play hide-and-seek with the bride on the night before the wedding. Everyone admits it's a silly tradition, but the family also insists that it's not a tradition they want to be responsible for breaking. The bride acquiesces and the game begins. It's not long before we find out that the game of hide-and-seek is intended to be deadly. They're not just searching for the bride, they're out to kill her. It turns out that the family is convinced that one of their ancestors made a deal with the Devil, and that the only way to prevent the entire family from burning in Hell is to sacrifice the first son's first wife. ## Death becomes her The movie lives up to the implied promise of such a ridiculous promise. The bridehunt that takes up most of the movie is funny and full of near misses and narrow escapes. Of course a family that hunts brides in exchange for their mortal souls would have servants, and it's a running gag throughout the movie that servants end up dead due to friendly fire. It never gets old, and it's an easy reminder to keep hating the murderous family. Not that you'd have any trouble remembering to hate the family. They're a tough sell from the start, and the bride is basically amazing. She ought to be the star of every horror movie, exactly as is. Of course she spends most of the movie in a wedding dress, wielding whatever found weapon she happens to have gotten hold of. She's beyond reproach, there's no way not to love her. ## The end Sadly, **Ready or Not** falters in its final few moments, at least for me. At the break of dawn, with the bride still alive, the family fully expects to be struck dead by Satan himself for failing the sacrifice. This is the moment of truth, and you lean in to see what's going to happen. Surely it was all just a stupid superstition, something the family clung on to despite all rationality. If so, that would make the movie a brilliant commentary on humanity, and the traditions and rituals we perpetuate to the detriment of ourselves and our fellow humans. But no, the curse was real, and the family really does get burned alive by a hellish force. Worse still, the movie hedges the bet by pretending it was fake, so you do get your "WHERE'S YOUR GOD (er, devil) NOW" moment, only to have it taken away as everyone bursts into flames. Hugely disappointing, not once but twice because you feel tricked. Well, I say it's disappointing, but what I really mean is that it disappointed me. If you don't get invested in whether the family is right or wrong about the curse, then the ending is, I guess, maybe funny. I'm not sure. Frankly I feel like it's a weak ending regardless of which way you wanted it to go, because it does try to go both ways. If ever there was a movie that needed to ship with 2 different endings, it's this one. ## It's still a good movie though Despite the movie's own indecision about its ending, this was an entertaining movie. It's low on classic horror tropes, but for the very end, but I guess it's a horrific enough story, and I think it's probably pretty gory. If you like horror, you'll probably enjoy this. It's clever, cool, and ultimately satisfying.

Lead photo by Anika De Klerk on Unsplash