THEY WILL KILL YOU : Tuesday 7th April 2026

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'THEY WILL KILL YOU' earlier this week at my local multiplex, and this American horror action comedy film is Co-Written and Directed by Kirill Sokolov who made his feature film Directorial debut with 'Why Don't You Just Die!' in 2018 and which he would follow up with 'No Looking Back' in 2021. The film Premiered at SXSW in mid-March, was released Stateside and here in Australia towards the end of last month, has so far grossed US$16M from a US$20M production budget and has garnered mixed or average critical reviews.

They film opens with two sisters - the older Asia Reaves (Zazie Beetz) and her much younger sibling Maria running into a 24/7 convenience store in the pouring rain, looking to evade their abusive father. However, he tracks them down as the pair run into the night and back out into the rain. The father gives chase, aided and abetted by a friend of his in a car which pulls up directly in front of the fleeing sisters, causing them to stop dead in their tracks. Asia pulls a gun at her advancing father, and shoots him. He slumps to the ground and she flees the scene as Police cars converge sirens and lights blaring, leaving her father grabbing at the ankle of young Maria hampering any chance she had of escape. Asia is arrested, and Maria returns to the abusive custody of her father. 

Fast forward ten years and Asia arrives at the front door of The Virgil, again in the pouring rain late one evening. The Virgil is an exclusive high rise apartment block in New York City, that is long past its hey day, but is nonetheless seen as exclusive and very private by its residents. She is welcomed by Irish building manager, Lilith Woodhouse (Patricia Arquette), who explains that the Virgil is over one hundred years old and is occupied by the wealthy and elite. She is shown to her living quarters and told to make herself at home. 

While sleeping, several masked intruders, including residents Kevin Sullivan (Tom Felton) and Sharon Vanderbilt (Heather Graham), break in and attack Asia. They are shocked to discover Asia is armed and highly skilled at defending herself (a skill that we later learn she picked up in prison) managing to kill all of the assailants. Asia confronts Lilith and demands the location of Maria, who works as a maid at the Virgil. Asia's attackers resurrect, forcing her to seek refuge in the building's myriad old wooden ventilation ducting system. 

Kevin and Sharon chase down Asia through the ducting system, all of them scrambling along on all fours, but Asia manages to dispatch Sharon with a shotgun blast to the head. Asia is saved by Lilith's husband, Ray (Paterson Joseph), who explains that The Virgil was built as a temple to Satan, and the residents have been made immortal by performing human sacrifices. The two travel up a floor, unaware they are being followed by Sharon's responsive eyeball. 

The two meet with a now adult Maria (Myha'la), who reveals she is aware of what is happening at The Virgil and has no desire to leave. Maria further berates Asia for abandoning her ten years ago, at a time when she needed her most. Asia knocks her unconscious, but she and Ray are attacked by the cultists. Asia and Maria escape up a floor via a dumbwaiter, while Ray is captured and tied up by Lilith and Sharon, whose head has started to grow back.

Exiting the dumbwaiter in the kitchen, Asia and Maria confront each another. Maria explains she fled their father shortly before he died from cancer two years ago now, working at downbeat motels until she was hired at The Virgil. Although she was initially due to be a sacrifice, she was spared and now enjoys the relative comfort of the building. Lilith demands that all residents and staff track down the sisters. Maria saves Asia from a cultist before being captured. 

Asia pursues the cultists into a grand dining room and slaughters most of them with a burning axe. The two try to climb up a fire escape via the elevator shaft, but are ambushed by Lilith and the cultists. Lilith reveals that, to gain immortality, Maria must make a sacrifice, that of the maid Asia was posing as.

The sisters and Ray are taken to the top floor, where the cultists summon Satan, who possesses the severed head of a pig to communicate, with the names of the immortal cultists written on its skin. The pig removes Ray's name from its skin and forces Lilith to murder him, permanently killing Ray. It then instructs Maria to write her name and kill Asia. Instead, Maria writes Asia's name and kills herself by slitting her own throat. Now immortal, Asia repeatedly kills Kevin, Sharon, and the cultists. Lilith allows the severed pig head to take over her body and fights with Asia, who overpowers her, removes the head and kicks her headlong landing on the spike upon which the pigs head was mounted. She douses the pig's head and sets it on fire, so burning off the names, and then promptly kicks the burning head mounted on a trolley down the hallway past all the cultists and down the elevator shaft where it erupts into a ball of flame, which results in the cultists all dying from their injuries. She then flees with Maria's body.

Reuniting with her private investigator cum lawyer (Angus Sampson), Asia places Maria's body in the backseat of his car, where she resurrects within a few minutes. Asia shows her that she has cut off her name from the pig's head and changed the letters from Asia to Maria. Now reunited, the sisters drive off as the top floor of the Virgil explodes.

In only his third feature film outing, here Director Kiril Sokolov has delivered us a gore fest that draws nods from other genre bending films, most recently 'Ready or Not 2 : Here I Come', reviewed here at Odeon Online only last week. Here the similarities are palpable - two estranged sisters reuniting after a prolonged period of absence from each others lives, the secret cabal of devil worshippers, and the elitist wealthy upper class knobs Hell bent on the sisters demise by whatever means possible. Even the closing lines of each film are near identical! Zazie Beetz plays her role for all its worth, as do Tom Felton, Heather Graham and Patricia Arquette. The kills are inventively staged, the fight sequences are well choreographed, the blood and gore are ramped up to eleven, and for a relatively brisk 94 minute runtime, the film doesn't outstay its welcome. But all of that said, I came out of the movie theatre thinking that this is just the same old same old that we have seen many times before, but for lovers of the genre it is sure to please.

'They Will Kill You' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-