Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Tori Preston | Film | March 28, 2026
We don’t rate movies based on a star system here at Ye Olde Pajiba, but if we did, then I’d give They Will Kill You at least five stars - one for every blood geyser that erupts during the breezy 94-minute runtime. I mean, there were probably more than five gore eruptions, to be honest, but you get the picture. The point is, this movie is probably not for everyone, but if you (like me) enjoy some fast and silly slop in your hybrid action/comedy/horror, then They Will Kill You has you covered. In blood.
Plotwise, this movie is dead simple: An ex-con named Asia (Zazie Beetz) infiltrates an exclusive Manhattan high-rise called The Virgil, posing as a housekeeper to find her missing sister, Maria (Myha’la). Turns out that housekeepers tend to disappear in the halls of The Virgil, but the movie thankfully doesn’t waste time making Asia uncover that mystery. Instead, the Satanic cabal that resides in the building comes to find her on her very first night. She’s supposed to be their latest human sacrifice, part of the contract they’ve made with the Devil in exchange for immortality, only they didn’t bank on their new maid being a prison-trained brawler. And oh, how she brawls!
They Will Kill You draws much of its style from the kung fu and blaxploitation movies of the ’70s, mixed liberally with a heavy dose of Looney Tunes absurdity, which I guess makes Patricia Arquette’s Lilith the Elmer Fudd of the venture. As the century-long superintendent of The Virgil, Lilith spearheads the hunt for Asia with nothing more than a can-do attitude and a wonky accent (and eventually a literal pig’s head). She’s Irish, the way Irish Coffee is Irish - just a splash of booze mixed in to make it sloshy - but I’m not complaining. Arquette’s cringey accent is of a piece with the casting as a whole, including Heather Graham and Tom Felton as rich people who are frequently dispatched in hilariously gruesome ways, only to resurrect and come back for more. They’re all out of place, somehow, which makes it so much more fun that they’re even trying. I assume Andy Muschietti’s production banner explains the higher caliber of talent than is warranted for what is Russian writer/director Kirill Sokolov’s first English-language picture, but it also means Zazie Beetz is surrounded by actors who can keep up with her without stealing her glory. Even if nobody else seems to belong in this movie, Beetz emphatically does. She knows exactly what movie she’s making and throws herself into every hidden passage and machete melee with the right blend of gravitas and glee.
Asia must fight her way up through the floors of The Virgil, which - in a nod to Dante Alighieri’s “Inferno”- are supposed to reflect the nine circles of Hell. The first floor, where the staff resides, would be Limbo, I suppose, and the second floor, dubbed the “F**k Floor,” is Lust. Next comes Gluttony, where Asia fights in a dining room, and then the movie mostly abandons the conceit in the interest of time and dashes straight to the top. Which is fine, because nobody asked for medieval Italian poetry clogging up their splatter flick. In the theater, I kept thinking back on last year’s HIM, a horror flick with plenty of potential which was ultimately smothered beneath its abundance of pedigree and pretensions. They Will Kill You may hint at larger themes at times, or tease influences and references to mull over, but it never demands anything so cerebral from the audience. Instead, the movie seems to get swept up in its own visceral pleasures and absurdity. By the time Heather Graham’s eyeball started rolling around independently like a squishy little spy, I knew this movie was capital-D Dumb fun, and that’s just fine by me.
So, to summarize: five-star flick for blood geysers alone, my favorite movie metric. Let Tom Felton get beheaded more often. Patricia Arquette doing the bare minimum still works, somehow. Zazie Beetz is a perfect horror/action hero in the making, and that’s not just because “Zazie Beetz Some Ass” is such a gimme (but also that would absolutely have been my headline if it weren’t for “brand safety” advertising concerns). They Will Kill You may not be remembered next year or even next week, but if you’re a bit of a sicko, it’s a great way to spend an hour and a half.
