What with not one, but two movies featuring devil worshipers getting their asses handed to them in the cinema right now, it just seems to be an immensely bad time to be a satanist these days. With Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come already on screens tearing affluent acolytes a new asshole, it seems like an immensely strange time for Warner Brothers to release They Will Kill You, a grindhouse coded slayfest that boasts more than a few similarities. Whether the box office is big enough for the both of them us something that will remain to be seen, but if you’re in the mood for another film featuring a blood-drenched warrior woman mercilessly ploughing her way through smug looking satanists in a remarkably violent fashion as she attempts to heal family rifts with her estranged sister, They Will Kill You should top off your needs.
Typical – they’re just like buses; you wait years for a movie that slaughters demonic fan boys and then two come at once…
After an attempt to leave their abusive stepfather fails miserably, sisters Asia and Maria Reaves are split apart after the elder sibling panics and rabbits in the chaos. As a result, the younger Maria is sent back to live with her odious guardian while Asia is ultimately arrested and does a nine year stretch in prison for the attempted murder of the woman beating scumbag. However, hardened by her time inside, Asia emerges from her sentence tougher and inhumanely dedicated to finding her sister once more in order to make amends and heal the wounds she caused by running.
However, before she can do that, first she’ll have to locate her, and after getting a tip that she’s working as a maid in a exclusive, New York City high-rise named the Virgil. But while Asia is now on the cusp of meeting her sibling for the first time in nearly ten years, there’s a few, pertinent notes about the Virgil that’s worth bringing up and the main fed flag concerns the mysterious disappearances that seem to surround the building. However, as she arrives under the dake pretence that she’s the new maid, the tough ex-con soon realises that something definitely isn’t right with the building and the people that dwell within it.
Could it be the rather serious looking lock on the main door? Maybe it’s the intense, Irish superintendent, Lilith, who gives her a tour of the place? What’s going on with the creepily friendly residents too, who look at her with knowing smiles and eager smiles – what’s their deal? But most of all, what does that worrying note scrawled in condensation in the bathroom getting at, I mean, “THEY WILL KILL YOU”? That can’t be good, right?
Soon Asia discovers that the Virgil is home to a vast, Satanic cult, which means it’s her versus an entire goddammed building of people desperate to sacrifice her to their dark lord – however, all those years in the pokey has hardly left Asia unprepared and as the night rolls on it becomes clear that it’s not exactly certain who will be killing who…
Even if They Will Kill You hadn’t have been released days after Ready Or Not 2 had stolen a lot of its potential thunder (2 films about sisters fighting satanists in the same month? How does that happen?), the crazed horror/action flick admittedly dances with the derivative as it goes about its bloody business. I guess the quick way to describe Kirill Sokolov’s excitable gore-fest is that it’s what happens when you have to The Raid at 8:00 but you’re Suspiria-ing at 9:00 as the movie offers a neat blending of the experiences offered by the epics both delivered by Gareth Evans and Dario Argento. But to that, if you further add the same pulp feel as Kill Bill (along with the curious addition of some QT levels of footfetish) and the gonzo, anything goes flavour of a Sam Raimi Evil Dead movie, then that gives you the full soupçon of what Sokolov is trying to achieve.
But while many may also throw around the usual John Wick comparisons to round things off, I found that the tone of They Will Kill You was more akin to that of Sisu, which also took a band of unsupportable villains (in that case Nazis) and then used its unstoppable hero to turn them all into bloody mush over the span of a tight, lean runtime. However, there’s a world of difference between a grizzled, unkillable prospector and the sight of Zazie Beetz in a t-shirt and pants delivering all kinds of pain to various cloaked and hooded villains with a variety of weapons and while They Will Kill You is noticably light on plot, it fills the narrative void with a near unbroken string of awesomely physical fight scenes and show stopping gore gags.
However, the real kicker is that due to the demonic pact the various residents of the Virgil are somewhat on the immortal side and no matter how viciously Asia takes them down, they soon heal up to fight another day. This gives Sokolov full licence to go full Wile E. Coyote with his villainous cast as Beetz rag dolls them in a string of impressive fight sequences that sees some very nasty things happen to some oddly familiar faces. I’m not exactly sure why the likes of Patricia Arquette (wrestling as with an Irish accent almost as violently as she does with Beetz), Heather Graham and Tom Felton signed up for a movie that would see various parts of their anatomy blown off at regular intervals, but it certainly adds to the anything goes vibe of the piece. Similarly, Myha’la’s sister in peril hints that after spending four seasons in a show like Industry, it’s just fun to do a film that has you kickin’ ass and spraying blood.
However, impressing the most is Beetz herself who “Beetz” her enemies into a bloody pulp with such gusto, you kinda hope that the role of “giant-haired ass kicker” will continue to pop up on her resume long after this. After all, movies this willfully silly need that heroic image to help sell the mayhem and if this film has anything that can match the sight of Bruce Campbell with a chainsaw hand at the end of Evil Dead II, it’s Zazie Beetz running headlong into battle with a flaming axe.
Is anything that occurs withing the walls of the Virgil logical or sensible? Nope, and those wanting more narrative meat on those bones may soon tire of all those self congratulatory crash zooms and Tarrantino style side bars – but on the other hand, when one of your characters is a sentient, disembodied eyeball that attempts to give chase once it’s original head has been pulped, you kind of know what you’re going to get.
While admittedly low on story, They Will Kill You attempts to plug the hole with as many mangled carcasses and goretacular fight scenes as it possibly can and offers up a truly great protagonist in the form of Zazie Beetz irrepressible bone breaker. Also, the 80s scrolling beat ’em up plotting means that director Kirill Sokolov is able to go on a full blown style offensive that delivers plenty of bang for your buck. With its only weak point being that it’s basically a cinematic smoothie made up from the greatest hits of others, it may end up faltering in the battle of sister saving satanist slayers, but at least Ready Or Not 2 doesn’t have a possessed, talking pig’s head…
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