Crew
Director – Kirill Sokolov, Screenplay – Alex Litvak & Kirill Sokolov, Producers – Dan Kagan, Andy Muschietti & Barbara Muschietti, Photography – Isaac Bauman, Music – Carlos Rafael Rivera, Visual Effects Supervisor – Marc Smith, Visual Effects – Crafty Apes, Special Effects Supervisor – Cordell McQueen, Prosthetics Designer – Jaco Snyman, Production Design – Jeremy Reed. Production Company – New Line Cinema/Nocturna/Domain Entertainment.
Cast
Zazie Beetz (Asia Reaves), Patricia Arquette (Lily Woodhouse), Myha’la (Maria Reaves), Paterson Joseph (Ray Woodhouse), Tom Felton (Kevin Sullivan), Heather Graham (Sharon Vanderbilt), Angus Sampson (The P.I.), James Remar (Voice of The Pig’s Head), Willie Ludik (Rob Thorsen), Darron Meyer (Richie Reaves)
Plot
Asia Reaves attempts to flee from her abusive father with her younger sister Maria, which ends with her shooting him as he comes after them. She is arrested. Ten years later, Asia is released from jail. She arrives at New York’s The Virgil hotel posing as Isabelle Davis, the new maid. She is accepted in and given a room. That night, as she settles in, hooded figures burst into her room and try to grab her. However, Asia fights back with fierce fighting skill and an arsenal of weapons she has brought with her. She is startled when the people she has maimed or killed get back up and are able to regenerate damage and reattach their missing limbs. As she flees through the hotel, she finds that the residents are people who have made pacts with The Devil for immortality. However, doing so requires a regular number of sacrifices – and she has been intended as one of them.
They Will Kill You was the third film for Russian director Kiril Sokolov, who first appeared with the black comedy Why Don’t You Just Die! (2018). This was Sokolov’s English-language debut. There are some similarities to Sokolov’s previous film No Looking Back (2021) about a mother violently determined to rescue her daughter. The film was produced through the new Nocturna production company of director Andy Muschietti and his producer sister Barbara, who were behind Mama (2013), It (2017) and The Flash (2023).
The first twenty minutes of They Will Kill You are quite deceptive. With Zazie Beetz’s arrival at the hotel, you expect something along the lines of Rosemary’s Baby (1968) – when Patricia Arquette introduces herself as a Mrs Woodhouse, it feels like this is intended as a homage. The scenes in the background with the African-American staff all outfitted as maids seems to be tipping its hand to Get Out (2017). The idea of a Rosemary’s Baby by way of Get Out seems full of intriguing possibilities.
About the twenty-minute point, They Will Kill You suddenly explodes into something totally WTF. Zazie Beetz is relaxing in her room for the night when black hooded figures sneak in. We expect something creepy to happen, what we don’t expect is her to burst out of a cupboard and the scene to erupt into a mind-bogglingly full-on fight where she is wielding a shotgun and samurai sword and is severing people’s heads and limbs.
What gets even more insanely wild is when Zazie Beetz exits the room and is followed by the people she has just maimed or killed who reattach their severed heads, legs and hands and continue on. Zazie next flees through the wainscotting crawlspaces of the building where at one point she is pursued by Heather Graham after blowing her head off with a shotgun while the rest of Heather’s headless body continues crawling on after her. Or else a removed eyeball that gains a life of its own and follows Zazie about spying on her.
The choreography of the action throughout They Will Kill You feels more like something that belongs in the John Wick franchise. Kirill Sokolov directs some amazing action set-pieces – one scene with Zazie Beetz using a flaming torch against opponents in a darkened ballroom and then leaping through the air as she kicks a dining table towards her opponent, who blows it apart with a shotgun before she comes down and cleaves the other person in two with her sword is so sensational it has you cheering. The ending of the film with the appearance of the Devil in the form of a talking pig’s head and Zazie Beetz’s ingenious solution to the situation is downright hilarious.
Trailer here