Movie Review: ‘They Will Kill You’

Opening in theaters on March 27 is ‘They Will Kill You,’ directed by Kirill Sololov from a script by Sokolov and Alex Litvak, starring Zazie Beetz, Myha’la, Paterson Joseph, Tom Felton, Heather Graham, and Patricia Arquette.

​Opening in theaters on March 27 is ‘They Will Kill You,’ directed by Kirill Sololov from a script by Sokolov and Alex Litvak, starring Zazie Beetz, Myha’la, Paterson Joseph, Tom Felton, Heather Graham, and Patricia Arquette.   

Opening in theaters on March 27 is ‘They Will Kill You,’ directed by Kirill Sololov from a script by Sokolov and Alex Litvak, starring Zazie Beetz, Myha’la, Paterson Joseph, Tom Felton, Heather Graham, and Patricia Arquette.

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Initial Thoughts

It’s certainly odd to see two horror-comedies about estranged sisters battling for their lives against a Satanic cult open within a week of each other, but Hollywood works in strange ways. Sadly, the newest one, ‘They Will Kill You,’ is less entertaining that the moderately enjoyable ‘Ready or Not 2: Here I Come,’ with ennui setting in quickly despite some hard work from star Zazie Beetz and a few impressive production values.

But ‘They Will Kill You’ otherwise comes across as soulless and pointless, with director Kirill Sokolov giving the impression that his entire range of influences consists of some early Quentin Tarantino and a few video games. A few morbidly funny images aside (a disembodied eyeball nearly steals the show), this is a movie made only to be lapped up by a late-night Fantastic Fest crowd who won’t even remember it the next day.

Story and Direction

Asia Reaves (Beetz) tries to save her younger sister Maria and herself from their vicious, predatory father, but ends up landing herself behind bars while Maria remains in dad’s clutches. A decade later, Asia is released from prison and promptly heads to an old-school New York luxury hotel called the Virgil, the last place she knew her sister (Myha’la) to be working.

Posing as a new member of the cleaning staff, Asia is barely settled into her quarters when she is attacked by the hotel’s manager, Lilith (Patricia Arquette), and a number of the guests. It seems that the Virgil is home to an ancient Satanic cult, and Asia has already been designated as their next ritual sacrifice to the Devil – a sacrifice that ensures the immortality of the Virgil’s guests even if they are hacked, decapitated, and disemboweled by Asia, who’s ready to fight back with everything she’s got.

Sokolov (‘Why Don’t You Just Die!’) and co-screenwriter Alex Litvak have strung together the thinnest script they could stretch to 90 minutes, just as connective tissue for a series of outlandish, cartoonish scenes of violence and gore. Blood sprays out of gaping wounds like fountains and the now-overused and irritating gimmick of ironically using pop song needle drops to score these repetitive sequences is deployed.

‘Ready or Not 2’ does more or less the same thing, but here the stakes are even less consequential because none of the Satanists can die; they merely come back to life even if Asia chops off their heads (as she does, frequently). Between that and the music undercutting everything, there’s no emotional engagement here at all with Asia, her quest, and her plight.

The cumulative effect is indeed of watching a video game as people die and reset. As a result a sort of numbness sets in – not the best response as we see, for the second week in a row, a young woman beaten mercilessly by her enemies (and again, with little stakes, since she seems quite capable of getting up and going back at it). There’s nothing scary or particularly suspenseful here, and aside from some humorous moments – as when we follow that eyeball we mentioned earlier – the film settles into a rinse-and-repeat cycle that isn’t even enlivened by the appearance of the Devil himself as a talking pig’s head.

The production values are handsome enough and the sound design is particularly effective (that team seems to be in on the joke, as their work often resembles that of cartoons). But Sokolov gets in his own way by drawing attention to his camera moves, his cutscene compositions, and his stylized, over-the-top gore, and the movie ends up vacuous and lacking anything resembling real human feelings or outcomes.

Cast and Performances

We’ve got to hand it to Zazie Beetz: not only does she have more screentime here than in just about anything else she’s done, but she makes the most of it despite the movie’s shortcomings. She has presence and an intense physicality, and is fully committed to the action even if it’s just more brutalization of a woman. Her dialogue is minimal, in keeping with the bare-bones script, so she works with what she can.

Wish we could say the same about Patricia Arquette, but her odd, sort-of Irish accent keeps distracting us. The rest of the cast, even Heather Graham, doesn’t really register, because they’re mostly there as fodder for gore.

Final Thoughts

Between this and ‘Ready or Not 2’ (which is the better film), it’s time to put a stake in the quickly ossifying horror-comedy tropes that have been rolled out in the last few years. But in addition to that, ‘They Will Kill You’ works too self-consciously hard to be something it’s not: an organic, authentic B-movie.

A film like this, released in the ‘70s or ‘80s, wouldn’t have necessarily been considered good. But years later, the same esthetic – filtered as mentioned above through the combination of Tarantino’s oeuvre and far too much time on the Xbox – now just comes across as a copy of a copy of a copy. Even when it gets to its boss level, ‘They Will Kill You’ never comes to life.

‘They Will Kill You’ receives a score of 40 out of 100.

What is the plot of ‘They Will Kill You’?

Searching for her sister, an ex-convict answers an ad to be a housekeeper at the Virgil, a mysterious New York City high-rise. But she is entering a death-trap that has seen a number of disappearances over the years, and discovers all too soon that she is next.

Who is in the cast of ‘They Will Kill You’?

Zazie Beetz as Asia ReavesMyha’la as Maria ReavesPatricia Arquette as Lily WoodhousePaterson Joseph as RayTom Felton as KevinHeather Graham as SharonChris van Rensburg as the ManagerGabe Gabriel as Short SteveDavid Viviers as Tall SteveWillie Ludkin as BobDarron Meyer as RitchieLindzay Naidoo as the Maid

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