The problem with They Will Kill You is that it reveals its twist early and there’s no build-up so the execution is overkill, literally.
Made like a cross between Ready or Not and Kill Bill, Zazie Beets plays Asia Reaves, who was convicted of killing her abusive father, but has been released and takes a job at The Virgil, an exclusive residential high-rise in New York City. Asia is there to find her younger sister, Maria (Myha’la) who is a maid. Asia pretends to there to work as a maid as well but almost after she arrives, the tenants sneak into her room to kill her in a Satanic sacrifice.
But she’s ready for them and kills them in gory fashion. Or so she thinks.
She discovers from Lily Woodhouse (Patricia Arquette), the superintendent, that they can’t be killed so easily.
And that’s where the movie immediately begins to fall apart. Since the tenants have sold their soul to Satan, no matter how many times their heads are chopped off or blown to pieces by shotguns, they’ll grow back in a short time. I guess the thing that has always bothered me about this trope is how come there isn’t a separate identical body that’s rejuvenated. someone’s head is blown apart which happens here, why doesn’t each piece of the body part grow the rest of the body.
I guess director Kirill Sokolov, who co-wrote with Alex Litvak, thought they’d be original by skipping the build up and just go right to the gory splatterfest that follows for most of the movie.
But it’s like if Alfred Hitchcock began Psycho with Marion Crane being stabbed in the shower and reveal it’s Norman Bates as his mother. Then they flash back to Marion in Phoenix stealing the money. It might have piqued our interest but I doubt people would still care after the halfway mark.
Even at an hour and a half, this movie goes on longer than it should. Even the climax seems to drag on and on. It’s more about style than substance.
But when you do this, you better be prepared to make it entertaining. After you sit through this movie once, you really want care to watch it again.
Also, Heather Graham is in this movie. Yet there is nothing really special about her character. She must’ve needed a paycheck.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 