They Will Kill You - Underwhelming
They Will Kill You is an action/comedy/horror movie from Kirill Sokolov and stars Zazie Beetz, Heather Graham, and Patricia Arquette. Screened at SXSW in 2026 the film received quite a bit of buzz so I figured I’d give it a watch and although there’s plenty of horror adjacent themes (occultism, blood and gore, and a sliver of sex), the movie felt pretty underwhelming for its 94min run time.
Kirill Sokolov does a good enough job keeping the pace going throughout the film, but there aren’t really any characters to speak of to give the film any emotional weight. The opening of the film doesn’t really set anything up to present stakes, and once we’re in it, the stakes don’t necessarily rise, and we’re introduced to a bunch of rules that the film doesn’t follow very well.
The plot is basically this; Asia Reaves and her sister Maria try to escape their abusive father, but are stopped at a store. Asia shoots him and is arrested, leaving Maria behind.
Ten years later, Asia infiltrates The Virgil, a luxurious NYC high-rise, posing as a maid to find Maria. After surviving an attack by masked residents who resurrect after being killed, Asia learns from building manager Lilith Woodhouse’s husband, Ray, that the building is a Satanic temple where residents gain immortality through human sacrifice.
Asia finds Maria, now a maid who has willingly embraced life in the building after escaping their father. When the cult turns on them, Asia fights through the residents while Maria is captured. The sisters are taken to the top floor, where a pig’s severed head possessed by Satan dictates that Maria must sacrifice Asia to gain immortality. How do they gain immortality? They have to swear allegiance to Satan, write their name on the pig head, and offer a blood sacrifice. Maria pulls the ol’ switcheroo and instead writes Asia’s name and kills herself, making Asia immortal.
Asia then slaughters the cultists, defeats Lilith, destroys the pig’s head, and causes the immortals to finally die. After escaping with Maria’s body, Asia reunites with an associate. Maria resurrects, revealing that Asia transferred immortality to her by changing the name on the pig’s head. The sisters leave together as The Virgil’s top floor explodes.
If you’re as confused as I am, it’s fine. The movie doesn’t really care that much about its story, characters, plot, or actual rules within itself. All it really cares about is watching a 120lb woman hack and slash her way through cultists while delivering some very cringy...quips. And when I say cringy, I mean it. This script feels like it was written in another language, then translated to English and edited to satisfy “American humor”. It feels very forced and ill-timed. The resurrection rules for the family don’t make sense and seem random, between when they resurrect, how fast, and from where. There’s a whole scene that I’m sure is played for laughs, where an eyeball just rolls around chasing Asia.
If you’re into horror adjacent beat ‘em up games turned into movies and you don’t care about the story or anything making sense, and just want to see hack and slash with buckets of blood, give this movie a watch. If you’re into caring about why the characters are doing that, maybe wait for streaming.
