THEY WILL KILL YOU – Review by Nadine Whitney
Kirill Sokolov’s first English language feature is far from substantial. Indeed, when one reads that his filmmaking style is influenced by Park Chan-Wook (or at least the hallway fight scene in Oldboy), Sam Raimi’s gory-driven horror-comedies, and anime; They Will Kill You becomes obviously derivative. Yet, within the derivation there’s a certain pleasure at just how far he is willing to go with his one-woman army played by Zazie Beetz. Everything is turned up to eleven and the film doesn’t stop for a moment. If you want a rip-roaring, messy, (mostly) one location survival thriller with ultra-violence, crawling eyeballs, and Satanists of the Ready or Not variety wearing pig masks and robes in a spooky private building in New York, Sokolov has you covered (in blood and guts).
Zazie Beetz turns up in the pouring rain to the Virgil (Dante reference intended), a private residence constructed in 1923, hopefully taking the position of maid. The staff manager, Lily (Patricia Arquette sporting an Irish accent) brings her inside the opulent apartment complex, which is home to artists, writers, entrepreneurs, and other financially and culturally elite types. It doesn’t take long for the new maid to clock that almost all the staff are people of colour. As long as she follows the rules and understands the needs of her employers she will be suitable, Lily tells her as she places her in her room.
“Isabelle” is canny enough to sense something is off with the tightly locked and guarded residence and places a chair under the door handle of her room. She’s taking precautions but the denizens of the Virgil aren’t quite prepared for the extent of those precautions. When “Isabelle” single-handedly wipes out a group of masked and robed attackers in her room wielding a sword and skilful hard action moves, Lily asks who she is. The answer is Asia Reaves and she’s there to find her younger sister Maria (Myha’la) and no weirdoes in stupid masks are going to stop her.
Asia doesn’t quite realise the situation she’s gotten herself into, just as the Satanists have misjudged the docility of their monthly human sacrifice to their Lord. “How hard is it to catch a little girl?” asks Tom Felton’s posh Kevin before Asia lops his head off. Chased by an assortment of elites and old-world types including beauty mogul Sharon (Heather Graham), the massive and salivating Bob (Willie Ludik), a kid named Damien, and various others hunt and fight Asia, all with the nasty habit of not staying dead no matter how seemingly final and ferocious the blow they received. Only one person working in the building, Lily’s husband Ray (Paterson Joseph) seems to want to stop the incessant bloodshed, because his “family” there has turned into something even worse than Satanists over the years; they’re classists who won’t allow those who stay out of their servitude to them no matter how much loyalty is shown. Morally bankruptcy shouldn’t surprise. Sokolov and co-writer Alex Litwak start the film with a quote by Benvenuto Cellini: “When the poor give to the rich, the Devil laughs.”
Sokolov and Litwak use flashbacks to situate the relationship of the sisters and the desperate straits that led them both to the Virgil. However, the emotional punch of their separation and reunion is secondary to the literal punches thrown by Asia as she slices, dices, burns, shoots, and punches her way through the death trap. It’s heightened Evil Dead 2 absurdity with some very nasty and also morbidly funny “flesh wounds” (like a head being blown off only to begin to grow again) delivered in rapid succession by Asia.
Zazie Beetz delivers a kind of cross between Pam Grier in her Blaxploitation roles and a video game character in ‘Street Fighter’ performance. The film rests on her well-trained shoulders, and she sells the choreography.
They Will Kill You stays lean at 94-minutes, but even then, it does seem a little too long as all the secrets were revealed fairly early on in the film and there is a sense that Asia is “playing levels” in a game that need not reiterate the rules. Nevertheless, They Will Kill You isn’t selling a deep story; it’s selling a splatter-stick dark comedy with maximum carnage. It’s gross and bloody fun.
