“THEY WILL KILL YOU” IS A WELCOME ADDITION TO THE EAT-THE-RICH HORROR CANON

Some years ago, Zazie Beetz had the unlikely distinction of emerging from a Deadpool movie as a potentially credible action star, in large part because her character Domino was only a figurative cartoon character, rather than one literally brought to life with computer effects. That’s not to say her fight scenes avoided heavy CG trickery; just that Beetz looked the least dragged-and-dropped into the action, maybe paradoxically owing to her unflappable deadpan. Beetz makes a belated return to action with They Will Kill You, a movie that seems like it shares DNA with the Deadpool movies—as so many recent action movies do, even when they’re aiming for The Raid. It’s styled like a comic book; relatedly irreverent in its humor; and brazenly, cartoonishly gory in its violence, all qualities that align it with Ready Or Not 2, Pretty Lethal, and Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice—and that only covers its peers of the last week.

SPOILERS FOR "THEY WILL KILL YOU" FROM THIS POINT

My Name is Asia Reeves and I've Come for My Sister.

The splatter-fest They Will Kill You largely takes place inside an exclusive Manhattan co-op, the Virgil, said to house some of the borough’s most odious elite. After a rain-soaked prologue set a decade earlier, Beetz arrives there as Asia—fresh out of prison, armed with a fake name, and very clearly on a mission. She’s there to find her sister Maria (played by Myha’la), last seen as a child in that opening sequence, now somewhere inside the building. Asia's armed with an arsenal of weaponry, so she knows something ain't right about this place. What she'll learn is that the Virgil isn’t just home to rich weirdos. It’s something much worse.

The Virgil looks like The Shining got a boutique hotel redesign by way of Barton Fink: yellowed wallpaper, suffocating hallways, rooms that feel like they’re watching you back. We find out, they are. Before she even settles in, Asia is attacked by four people in pig masks who pop through a whole in a wall behind a fridge and reveal themselves leaders in the building’s resident Satanic Cult. Fun!

From there, Asia’s search essentially unfolds like a video game, each section of the building its own level—crawlspaces, elevator shafts, hidden corridors—all leading up to the ninth floor, where you just know some truly unholy shit is waiting.

Family Reunions Can Be Challenging.

Director Kirill Sokolov and his co-writer Alex Litvak make two particularly good decisions here. The first is wisely leaning into its structure, prioritizing movement and visual storytelling over cheeky dialogue. There are long stretches with no dialogue at all—just Beetz running, climbing, stabbing, surviving. More movies should trust themselves that much.

The second is leaning into the horror, and not just in the impressive levels of practical arterial spray (though a lack of CG blood is always appreciated). The big, easy-to-guess, early-revealed secret of the Virgil’s inhabitants lends itself well to a more fantastical, Sam Raimi-esque level of splat-stick. There’s a sequence where Asia and her pursuers crawl and grapple through a series of small tunnels that’s both logistically creative as action and amusingly reminiscent of an Alien movie—and that’s before it introduces what will almost certainly stand out as cinema’s most delightful errant eyeball of the year.

All credit to whoever’s running the Virgil—real thought went into the amenities.

The residents, led by Patricia Arquette’s delightfully unplaceable-accented Lilith, along with Heather Graham and Tom Felton. Arquette is clearly having a ball, playing Lilith with a kind of slippery, vaguely European menace. Heather Graham, meanwhile, leans all the way into the bit—equal parts eerie and absurd, almost like she wandered in from a different, slightly campier movie. And if Tom Felton insists on taking roles like this, I’m going to insist he go by Malfoy in every single one of them. There’s something deeply funny about watching him give the same smug, rich kid energy, giving Asia the same treatment as Dobby the House Elf.

And after five seasons of Industry, it’s genuinely jarring seeing Myha’la play someone this meek. But if anything, that just reminds you how good she is. She keeps it small, quiet, and fragile, but never flat, and it makes Asia’s whole mission land just a little harder.

Our Offering is On the Loose.

Look, I’m not going to sugarcoat it—this movie is f*cking absurd. It's campy. It's kooky. It's bloody. And it's weird as hell. You’ve got a satanic cult, a building full of rich psychos, and yes, the literal devil eventually pulling up; You either want to go on that ride or you don’t.

Unquestionably, this movie's style over substance. It completely lacks any subtlety or much subtext beyond the very real urge to eat the rich. The service staff, notably made up entirely of Black and brown women, feels like it’s circling something sharper than the movie ultimately lands on. But They Will Kill You isn’t really here for insight. It’s here for impact. And it's simply not equipped to serve up a nuanced exploration of race and class division.

And honestly? At a tight 94 minutes, it doesn’t waste time trying to convince you it wants to. It kicks into high gear fast and stays there. (And yes, for those wondering, Zazie Beetz does get her toe licked by a hooded creep at minute 13. Make of that what you will.)

Even when it stumbles, it keeps things moving. And when it really locks in, it’s allure is kind of undeniable.

Asia isn’t the most deeply drawn character, but Beetz gives her more than enough weight to hold the film down. Because here’s the thing: the most important aspect of a film like this is believability. And Zazie Beetz looks like she could believably beat the crap out of anyone who tries her. You believe her desperation. And at one point, when a blade pins her hand to a wall, and she frees herself by pulling straight through it, you definitely believe her pain tolerance.

When Heather Graham walks into frame looking like the shrunken head from Beetlejuice, the movie pretty much announces its not here to take itself seriously. It's just here to entertain you. And in that it succeeds.

4/5  ★: A gleefully deranged survivor thriller that knows exactly what it’s doing.