They Will Kill You

Kirill Sokolov’s first English-language film, They Will Kill You, opens with a premise that instantly evokes a sense of déjà vu for anyone who has spent the last few years watching genre cinema devour itself in a cycle of revenge thrillers, anti-rich horror comedies, and survival challenges with ambitious concepts. Yet what makes the film worth watching isn’t its clearly limited originality, but the unwavering conviction with which director and co-screenwriter Kirill Sokolov throws himself into the adventure, delivering a bloody spectacle of action and horror that’s as energetic as it is uneven. From the very first minutes, the film makes it clear that subtlety isn’t on the agenda. Instead, we’re treated to a loud, maximalist, sometimes exhausting but often entertaining genre adventure, built almost entirely around the physical presence of Zazie Beetz, whose performance alone prevents the film from collapsing under the weight of its own excesses.

The story follows Asia Reaves, played by Zazie Beetz, a woman recently released from prison who infiltrates the Virgil, a luxurious yet deeply unsettling New York skyscraper where she believes her sister Maria, played by Myha’la, has disappeared after taking a job as a housekeeper. A prologue establishes the sisters’ traumatic past with an abusive father, a sequence that effectively provides the emotional motivation for everything that follows, even if the screenplay by Kirill Sokolov and Alex Litvak never develops this relationship as deeply as it should. Once Asia enters the Virgil, the film soon reveals that the building is home to a satanic cult composed of wealthy residents who maintain their immortality through ritual sacrifices, a twist that quickly transforms what initially resembles a mystery into a relentless siege film where survival depends on how many times the heroine manages to kill the same enemies over and over again.

The setting itself is one of the film’s most intriguing concepts. The Virgil, overseen by the unsettling concierge Lilith—played by Patricia Arquette—is presented as a vertical labyrinth of luxury, decadence, and occult symbolism, with hints suggesting that each floor represents a different vice or a circle of hell. The art direction and cinematography give the building a strong personality, and there are moments when it feels as though the film could explore its universe with the same imagination as classics such as The Raid or Snowpiercer. Unfortunately, these possibilities are only partially realized, as the narrative repeatedly chooses to rush from one fight sequence to the next rather than fully exploit the potential of its setting. The result is a film that seems richer than it actually is—visually impressive but thematically superficial.

Where Where They Will Kill You undeniably succeeds is in its action choreography and its commitment to practical gore, often joyfully excessive. Kirill Sokolov directs the fight scenes with a shaky camera, combining crash zooms, wide-angle distortion, and comic-book-style transitions that evoke everything from Sam Raimi to Quentin Tarantino. Limbs fly, bodies explode, blood spurts in fountains more reminiscent of Italian gore cinema than modern studio-produced horror films, and the film’s central gimmick (the cultists’ immortality) allows for increasingly absurd variations on the same violent clashes. A severed eyeball rolling down the hallways, enemies reassembling themselves after being torn to pieces, and weapons ranging from machetes to flaming axes all contribute to a tone that constantly oscillates between horror, slapstick, and exploitation film parody. It’s ridiculous, sometimes deliberately so, but it also shows a filmmaker who genuinely takes pleasure in staging the action.

At the center of all this chaos stands Zazie Beetz, and the film wisely relies on her almost every moment. She embodies Asia not as a traditional final girl, but as something closer to an action heroine dropped into a horror film—a character whose determination and physical presence constitute the film’s only true emotional anchor. Zazie Beetz handles the demanding choreography with convincing tenacity while conveying the guilt and protective instinct that drive her character, and her chemistry with Myha’la is strong enough to make their sisterly bond believable even when the script doesn’t give it enough room to flourish. Surrounding them, the supporting cast—including Tom Felton, Heather Graham, Paterson Joseph, Willie Ludik, David Viviers, and Gabe Gabriel—primarily serve as colorful obstacles rather than fully realized characters, though several of them clearly embrace the film’s kitschy tone, particularly Heather Graham, who seems perfectly at ease in the film’s most extravagant moments.

The film also sketches out a social critique of class, privilege, and exploitation, with the cult’s wealthy members literally feeding off the working class to maintain their status, but these ideas never go beyond the surface. The screenplay touches on themes of inequality and power only to abandon them in favor of the next scene, resulting in a film that seems more interested in style than substance. This isn’t necessarily a fatal flaw—many of the best genre films survive on sheer energy alone—but it means the emotional stakes never feel as high as they should, particularly in the final act where the escalation becomes so extreme that the film begins to lose its sense of tension.

It is in this final stretch that They Will Kill You divides audiences the most. The excess that made the early scenes entertaining gradually turns into repetition, and the constant resurrection of enemies diminishes the impact of the violence, no matter how inventive the staging may be. The climax propels the film into a world akin to an animated film, with increasingly bizarre twists that will delight some viewers and exhaust others. It’s the kind of ending that perfectly sums up Kirill Sokolov’s approach: ambitious, unapologetic, and over-the-top, more concerned with delivering a spectacle than tying everything together satisfactorily.

They Will Kill You is the very definition of cinema where style trumps substance, a film that borrows heavily from its influences but still manages to entertain thanks to its energy, its commitment to practical effects, and above all the presence of Zazie Beetz, who proves she possesses the charisma and physical presence necessary to carry a leading role in a full-fledged action-horror film. It may never reach the level of the films it so openly references, and its story is far thinner than its visuals suggest, but there is a certain pleasure in watching a film so willing to throw itself wholeheartedly into its own madness.

They Will Kill You
Directed by Kirill Sokolov
Written by Kirill Sokolov, Alex Litvak
Produced by Andy Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti, Dan Kagan
Starring Zazie Beetz, Myha'la, Paterson Joseph, Tom Felton, Heather Graham, Patricia Arquette
Cinematography: Isaac Bauman
Edited by Luke Doolan
Music by Carlos Rafael Rivera
Production companies: New Line Cinema, Nocturna
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
Release dates: March 17, 2026 (SXSW), March 25, 2026 (France), March 27, 2026 (United States)
Running time: 94 minutes

Viewed on March 26, 2026 at Gaumont Disney Village, Theater 5, seat A16

Mulder's Mark: