They Will Kill You (2026) is directed by Kirill Sokolov, who also wrote the film alongside Alex Litvak. It stars Zazie Beetz, Patricia Arquette, Myha’la, Paterson Joseph, Tom Felton, Heather Graham, Willie Ludik, David Viviers, Gabe Gabriel, Viktoria Korotkova, Dorothy Ann Gould, Mike Huff, Darron Meyer, Orefile Moloi, Brandon Auret, Angus Sampson, Chris van Rensburg, and Neels Junior Clasen. When she’s sent to prison for shooting their abusive father, Asia Reaves (Beetz) is forced to abandon her beloved younger sister, Maria (Myha’la). When she’s finally released years later, Asia tries to reconnect with Maria, but learns she recently went missing after taking a job at a fancy NYC hotel. Posing as the hotel’s newly hired maid, Maria quickly realizes that the staff and various guests are actually a cult of satanists who plan on using her as their next human sacrifice. This forces Aisa to implement the violent skills she gained in prison to not only survive, but also find her sister before it’s too late.

This is the kind of over-the-top genre film that leans into big, silly characters. Because of this, it’s tough to take anyone seriously or truly care about their more human plights. However, this does allow the cast to get weird with their performances and really chew the scenery. I wish they had found a better way to implement actors like Tom Felton and Heather Graham, but they’re a lot of fun despite being underutilized. Thankfully, Zazie Beetz gives the strongest performance of the bunch, proving herself as a physically capable action hero who consistently delivers her character’s otherwise cheesy one-liners in a way that’s completely badass.     

Despite its horror influences, it’s not exactly the type of experience that generates suspense or tension. Instead, it uses horror elements from subgenres such as giallo to spice up the visuals of what’s essentially a cross between Kill Bill and Die Hard. The blood and gore feel like something out of a Tarantino movie, but cranked up to an almost comical level. It’s almost Evil Dead-like in its zaniness, a lot of which is provided by the satanists’ supernatural ability to regrow and reattach severed limbs–one of the film’s more unique touches. This all becomes just a bit too goofy and CGI-heavy in the final act, but at least the action remains consistently inventive. 

The film often trades stakes for humor, which works better than I expected, though it loses a lot of emotional and thematic depth. This helps inject things with an overarching sense of fun, but I’m not sure the sacrifice is always worth it. There’s a lot of strong horror imagery, but none of it is used to generate any real scares, which the film desperately needs. This lack of a dynamic tone just causes it to lose steam as it goes along.

Overall, this is a zany, heavily stylized, Tarantino-inspired action-horror experience that should work wonders for its target audience. It has solid sets, a badass heroine, and some sweet needle drops. For fans of blood & gore, it also has some decent carnage candy. This is a well-done twist on the ‘one man army’ (in this case, ‘woman’) subgenre, but the core formula is one we’ve seen many times before. It also might just be a bit too silly for some audiences, and I wouldn’t blame them. However, I had a lot of fun with this despite its clear flaws. B-