A game of hide-and-seek turns vio­lent in the Ready or Not trailer

Between the trav­el, awk­ward con­ver­sa­tion, mediocre food, and attempt­ed mur­der, wed­dings can be a real drag. Though that last one may be unique to Grace (Sama­ra Weav­ing), the belea­guered blush­ing bride whose nup­tials take a vio­lent turn in the new­ly released trail­er for Ready or Not.

Her hus­band Alex (Mark O’Brien) seems too good to be true: hand­some, charm­ing, and heir to his family’s vast for­tune accrued in the gam­ing indus­try. Imag­ine her sur­prise when it turns out that he real­ly is, and that she’ll have to weath­er a pecu­liar round of hide-and-seek before his eccen­tric fam­i­ly will allow her to join their ranks.

What begins like an off-key cham­ber com­e­dy takes a hard right turn into night­mare ter­ri­to­ry as the fam­i­ly mem­bers (includ­ing Andie Mac­Dow­ell a sin­is­ter Adam Brody) take up assort­ed weapon­ry and begin hunt­ing her down in a more high-stakes fash­ion than Grace had pre­pared for. So sets the scene for a night of lac­er­a­tions, decap­i­ta­tions, sev­er­ings, and oth­er var­i­ous terrors.

This nuts-and-bolts hor­ror project comes from indie stal­warts Matt Bet­tinel­li-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, both con­trib­u­tors to the well-liked anthol­o­gy films V/H/S and South­bound. Their lat­est fea­ture will be their first in coop­er­a­tion with Fox Search­light (A Dis­ney Com­pa­ny™!), and while the footage in the trail­er reflects a clear bump in resources, it would appear that they haven’t lost their touch for mor­dant humor and inven­tive kills.

If noth­ing else, it’ll be the first wed­ding film to make cre­ative use of a cross­bow. Think Melan­cho­lia (the gold­en-hued col­or-grad­ing will make that easy) meets You’re Next, and you’re in the gen­er­al neighborhood.

Ready or Not comes to cin­e­mas in the US on 23 August, and then the UK on 27 September.