Courtney Howard // Film Critic
Rated R, 1 hour and 34 minutes
Directed by: Kirill Sokolov
Starring: Zazie Beetz, Myha’la, Patricia Arquette, Paterson Joseph, Willie Ludik, Tom Felton, David Viviers, Gabe Gabriel, Angus Sampson
THEY WILL KILL YOU has a lot of the same elements as READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME. They both include estranged sisters, a Satan-worshipping “family” and a battle through weapon-wielding psychopaths in order to achieve personal freedom. However, in co-writer/ director Kirill Sokolov’s action-horror-comedy, those ingredients don’t manage to come together in any refreshingly unique way. Sokolov and co-writer Alex Litvak have created a sophomoric, poor man’s Tarantino knock-off filled with little to no stakes and Looney Tunes-esque violence. Yet, when all is said and done, it showcases that Zazie Beetz can still give ‘em hell.
10 years ago, on a dark and stormy night, Asia Reaves (Beetz) and adolescent sister Maria went on the run from their abusive father, but did not succeed in getting away clean. Asia shot and maimed her dad and poor, helpless Maria was quickly apprehended and put back into his lousy care. In a frenzied fit, Asia abandoned her, separating the pair permanently as she was forced to do hard time in jail. It’s there where she learned to fight and keep the fires of vengeance burning hot.
During that time, Asia hires a private investigator/ lawyer (Angus Sampson), who informs her that Maria (Myha’la) is working as a maid at Manhattan’s The Virgil, a hundred-year-old high-end high-rise run by superintendent Lily Woodhouse (Patricia Arquette) and her husband Ray (Paterson Joseph). Some of the wealthy occupants include beauty entrepreneur Sharon (Heather Graham) and deviously mustachioed Kevin (Tom Felton). Asia, hoping to reunite and rescue her sister, slips in under the guise that she’s the high-rise’s new maid. However, she quickly learns the truth that the position is one of sacrifice – as in she’s to be a human sacrifice.
One of the big secrets of the building works against the filmmakers’ gambit: the members and staff are all immortal, able to regenerate limbs and full-on resurrect themselves. The onslaught of fisticuffs and brawls Asia is tasked to deal with are supposed to feel unrelenting – a la THE RAID. But since death means nothing in this film, none of the brutal beatings, severed limbs and decapitations that denizens like Sharon, pervert Bob (Willie Ludik), Tall Steve (David Viviers) and Small Steve (Gabe Gabriel) accrue carry any weight. Outside of Lily and Ray’s relationship, the remaining supporting characters are goofy one-dimensional punching bags. Their inclusion fails to add much in the way of atmospheric lore to spruce up the place (as say ROSEMARY’S BABY’s tertiary players did).
Though the big action set pieces change settings (in gratuitously spacious hallways, studio apartments, sex dungeons, a moonlit ballroom and a dank kitchen, to name a few), the patterns are highly repetitive: Asia first takes a licking (once literally) and then comes out swinging to music cues that don’t sound terribly dissimilar to Tarantino’s spaghetti-western-inspired needle drops. The filmmakers also make the mistake of showing and telling a few times, where flashbacks show us the action before cutting back to a character who flatly states the obvious where a quip would’ve lifted the comedic pull. Gripes aside, Sharon’s severed eyeball scurrying and squelching through crawl spaces earns a laugh or two due to its pure unhinged audacity. It may even be the movie’s “for your consideration” breakout star.
Action and splatterrific gore are conjoined, akin to the unaltered, color version of “The House of the Blue Leaves” chapter in KILL BILL: THE WHOLE BLOODY AFFAIR – where fountains of blood cascade from disembodied limbs, sputtering into the faces of the actors during smack-downs. It plays similarly in tone and construction, just elongated to a feature length. Camera movements share a similar fluidity too, following the actors who get kicked, axed and blown away by shotgun blasts. Fight choreography is cleanly shot and edited so we can see the moves, despite the stunt players being conspicuously cloaked in dark poncho-like rain slickers and pig masks.
The sisterly bond is conceptualized with even less originality than READY OR NOT 2’s already reductive portrayal. Starting two female arcs on physical trauma is also not inventive, even as a way to hint to us these rich folks are messing with the wrong gals. We’ve seen that journey before too, best executed in YOU’RE NEXT. The fine point the filmmakers try to make about the white wealthy upper crust preying on the disadvantaged and marginalized blurs in their attempt to be timely, deflating before the run time has ended. In one of Ray’s multitude of exposition dumps, he lets on that they used to use “bad people” as their sacrifices, but now use “illegals, minorities and indigent.” This commentary is delivered with all the subtlety of a cartoon sledge hammer to the head.
No doubt this pulpy farce is geared towards the rowdy Midnight Madness/ Late Night Stoners crowd and will potentially earn a cult following there. Still, for those who want something more fresh and uniquely styled, heed the advice to check in elsewhere.
Grade: 2 out of 5
THEY WILL KILL YOU will be in theaters on March 27.
