★★ (2 out of 4)
Hollywood holds this truth to be self-evident. If you can’t give audiences anything
amaze amaze amaze, like it did last week with “Project Hail Mary,” give them horror dished out on the cheap so it won’t bankrupt the studio that’s releasing it. In the case of the new fright fest entitled “They Will Kill You,” that would be Warner Bros, the storied studio about to be acquired by Paramount Skydance, led by David Ellison, for roughly $110 billion, beating a rival bid from Netflix. Now the question is, what will Paramount be getting for its estimated $80 million investment in “They Will Kill You”?
Not bloody much. The movie’s chief asset is definitely firecracker Zazie Beetz in the lead role of Asia Reeves. Just out of nine years in prison (a good place to pick up combat skills), Asia has moved to New York City to get a maid job at the Virgil, a luxury Manhattan skyscraper where she believes that her sister, Maria, played by “Industry” standout Myha’la, is being held against her will by a cult of satanists, hungry for human sacrifices.
Sounds promising, right? And it plays that way for the first third of its 94 minute running time. Directed and co-written (with Alex Litvak) by Kirill Sokolov, best known for “Why Don’t You Just Die!”—the dude has a knack for titles—this supposedly original horror comedy quickly runs into the brick wall of way too obvious influences—think last week’s “Ready or Not 2,” with a “Kill Bill” chaser and a Sam Raimi “Evil Dead” finish.
Boring is too small a word to hold the heaps of tedium that come with relentless repetition of kill scenes in constant rotation.
Luckily, Beetz is an actress worth following anywhere. From her Emmy-nominated TV breakthrough on “Atlanta” to such films as “Deadpool 2,” “Bullet Train” and “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die,” Beetz occupied the screen with enormous poise and confidence.
Her character is introduced in a flashback running from a house she shares with an abusive father. Sadly, her escape leaves her sister behind with the monster, fostering a guilt Asia can’t shake into adulthood, sparking her attempt to rescue Maria at The Virgil.
Enter Lilith Woodhouse (yup, the surname also belongs to the Mia Farrow character in “Rosemary’s Baby” one of the film’s many callbacks to better horror films). Lilith is the superintendent at The Virgil and she’s played with shaky menace and a shakier Irish brogue by “Boyhood” Oscar winner Patricia Arquette. Something is off about a lot of things in “They Will Kill You,” including an unpersuasive attempt to pass off Cape Town, South Africa, as swanky mid-town Manhattan. Were the producers economizing?
The action kicks in fast and furious distraction as Beetz and Myha’la run into a gang of killers in goat masks ready to offer up Asia to His Satanic Majesty. I must report that that this slambam opening salvo is as good as “They Will Kill You” ever gets. It’s great to see Heather Graham and Tom Felton among the baddies, but what a shame no one wrote actual characters for them to play. When in doubt, Sokolov lays on the carnage with arteries gushing like fires hoses.
Worse, “They Will Kill You” spends its final hour repeating itself as Asia keeps slaughtering satanists who can’t be killed, reassembling right before her shocked eyes. Their deal with the devil is they keep on keeping on. Boring is too small a word to hold the heaps of tedium that come with relentless repetition of kill scenes in constant rotation.
By the end, which falls resoundingly flat, the realization sinks in that the doors of The Virgil are still open, paving the way for a sequel or two. For the sake of all that’s unholy, let’s hope that never happens. There’s enough reassembling in “They Will Kill You” to last a lifetime.