By Keith Walther | Rose Law Group Reporter
There’s not enough blood spray in the world to cover up for the sheer number of flaws or campiness this movie employs. “They Will Kill You” is the latest splatter horror film arriving one week after “Ready or Not 2: Here I Come,” and it is inferior in almost every way possible. It tries to emulate a variety of different subgenres to become one of those cult classic B movies, but it never finds its own identity and turns into an insult to B movies instead.
After a ten-year stint in prison for attempted murder, Asia Reaves (Zazie Beetz) is on a mission to find her younger sister Maria (Myha’la). This leads her to a strange high-rise named The Virgil in New York City, where she accepts a job as a housekeeper. Things fly off the rails almost immediately as her boss Lily (Patricia Arquette) reveals herself as a satanic cult leader over everyone in the building, and Asia is the designated sacrifice.
If the story of a woman caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse with a satanic cult while she tries to save herself and her sister sounds familiar, that’s because it is also the foundation of last week’s “Ready or Not 2: Here I Come.” Russian writer/director Kirill Sokolov also tries to utilize a similar ploy of defusing tension with over-the-top kills and humor. These attempts ultimately fall flat, becoming more noise than anything, especially with poor dialogue writing. Kirill tries so hard to be Quentin Tarantino, even mimicking the samurai swordplay and arterial blood spray from the “Kill Bill” movies, culminating in a cheap copy that lacks effectiveness. In fact, this magically sharp blade seems to effortlessly cleave through bone, making for all too easy amputations and beheadings that make the audience wonder if this is an episode of “Is It Cake.”
Enhancing these issues is the lack of Kirill’s commitment to a cohesive tone with a first act that had actually contained a strong horror vibe with skillfully built suspense only to devolve into silliness with over-exaggerated violence and gore. When the stupid humor fails to be funny, the whole thing becomes just plain stupid. The characters lack depth, especially the antagonists whose purpose seems half-baked and contradictory. Doubling down on the mind-numbingly sludge of violence, Kirill punches the crazy button for the climax, yielding a headshaking ending that cements the disappointment.
The cinematography for this film is really one of the only things that works. Kirill Sokolov implements short lenses to exaggerate the space during fight sequences to embrace the chaotic nature of those scenes. The fights move like well-choreographed dance steps and there’s a fluid, rhythmic movement to the camera rather than using jump cuts. Again, this visual style tends to copy that of Quentin Tarantino’s, but at least it works. Unfortunately, outside of the sculpted visuals, Kirill neglects attention to detail, making a series of noticeable blunders. For example, in the opening scenes, the main character and sister are shown running through a torrential downpour and entering a convenience store, only to be depicted in the next frame as bone dry with not a drop of moisture on their clothing. This is one inexcusable mistake of many that exposes this film’s lack of quality and rushed nature.
With dumbed down dialogue, the cast offers very little except to overact their roles like Patricia Arquette. However, this is an opportunity for Zazie Beetz to spread her wings as a budding action star and the German born actress takes full advantage of it. She supplies her character with this gritty determination and an inner fire of rage that turns her into a fearsome combatant, executing the fight choreography with credible precision and fluidity. This is the kind of performance that will make viewers wonder what she could achieve with a better script and director.
Just like most knockoffs, this movie falls apart at the seams, without enough creativity or humor to patch it into something resembling entertainment. “They Will Kill You” could add theft to the title for stealing your time and money should you see this shameless ripoff. There are too many other films in this genre that execute it significantly better, unless you have a hankering for seeing a pigheaded ninja…literally.
This movie earns:
