They. Will. Kill. You. The camera zooms in on each of these words appeared in the foggy mirror intensely at one point in the movie, suggesting Kirill Sokolov means business. Bloody mean business, to be exact, as the Russian director (Why Don’t You Just Die!, No Looking Back) goes for the jugular in his first English-language film.
Before the killing takes place, Sokolov, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Predators‘ Alex Litvak, gets down to the nitty-gritty detail in establishing his protagonist Asia Reaves (Zazie Beetz) and her younger sister, Maria, trying to get to New York, hoping to start fresh. We learn they are victims of domestic abuse, and they have run away from home. Sokolov reflects their plight by featuring them in the nighttime, rainy background to amplify the dramatic urgency and tension. They are far from danger, as their abusive father has been looking all over for them.
After things do not go the way Asia is expecting, the story cuts to a decade later. And guess what, it’s a rainy night as Asia arrives at the front door of an old Manhattan building while soaking wet. She’s here for the maid job, where building manager Lily (Patricia Arquette, sporting a wobbly Irish accent) answers the door and shows Asia around, before assigning her to one of the rooms.
Sokolov doesn’t hide the fact that something is ominous from the moment Asia is at the building, with everyone else, including Lily, looking suspicious. But she is hardly letting her guard down, making sure the door is locked and even placing a chair under the door latch for added safety.
Apparently, not enough for her to at least get a good night’s sleep, especially after a group of assailants dressed in black hooded raincoats and pig masks manages to find another way to sneak into her room. Except that Asia is no pushover, as she’s more than ready to fight against them with a… machete and other weapons she has stored inside her luggage.
From here, Sokolov goes all Kill Bill style as Asia hacks and slashes like a well-trained samurai, and even takes them down with her double-barrelled shotgun. It’s an orgy of violent decapitation, chopped limbs, and gushing blood, showcasing Beetz’s agility in her physically demanding performance that matches well with Sokolov’s dynamic camerawork and wide-angle shots emphasizing the thrillingly staged action choreography.
And it gets interesting from here in a gleefully macabre way as these masked assailants, among them played by Heather Graham and Tom Felton, aren’t exactly humans, highlighting the supernatural elements beyond its initial action-movie premise. This leads to more complications, as Asia finds herself stuck in the building with seemingly no way out. Other than trying her best to survive, she must find and rescue her sister (Myha’la, playing the adult Maria) at all costs. These assailants, in the meantime, turn out to be cultists who have sold their souls to the devil. And to appease him, they must fulfill the kind of sacrificial action that we have already seen in Ready or Not and its recent sequel just a few weeks ago.
Frankly, the story itself is nothing new, but at least Sokolov doesn’t go all pretentious here, leaving only the bare essentials, zeroing in on Asia’s single-minded mission of finding her sister and killing the rest. No doubt the tendency of a rinse-and-repeat storytelling made its way after a while, risking the movie into redundancy. This is especially true during the midsection, as Sokolov positioned Asia in the same surviving mode from one floor to another as the assailants keep coming back for her.
Still, the good thing is that They Will Kill You thankfully runs 94 minutes, just lean enough without overstaying its welcome. Besides, a single-location survival action-horror like this wouldn’t be a brilliant idea to have the movie stretched to two hours or more. Beetz’s overall engaging performance as the relentless Asia is one of the key factors that keep me invested in her character. Not to mention, Sokolov equally brings out the best in the rest of the supporting cast, notably Patricia Arquette and Heather Graham, who both enjoy hamming up their antagonistic performances.
Looking at They Will Kill You as a straight-up genre movie, Sokolov knows well how to blend visceral action with the gore-filled supernatural horror tropes. Fans of either of the genres would likely have a blast in the cinema, the kind of communal experience watching the blood-soaked mayhem free-flowing on the big screen.
The Review
They Will Kill You
Director and co-writer Kirill Sokolov brings in enough kinetic energy to his no-holds-barred action-horror hybrid.
Review Breakdown
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Verdict
