They Will Kill You
- 4 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Bloody, goofy and just plain dumb, THEY WILL KILL YOU wastes a great cast with a "Rosemary's Baby"/ wannabe Tarantino action mashup that manages to feel much longer than its 94 minutes.
Zazie Beetz (Deadpool 2, Joker) is wasted as Asia Reeves, a young woman who takes a job at one of those giant NYC brownstones that seem to only exist on rain slicked Manhattan streets.
Like "The Bramford" where Rosemary's pregnancy served up plenty of scares back in the day, The Virgil is a massive collection of upscale apartments that house a diverse collection of souls.
They all have made a pledge to Satan himself, which shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone that notices the satanic symbols on the rooftop.
Before Asia has time to set down her bags and accept a job as a maid at the property, she begins to notice strange noises in the vents.
Crazy occupants raid her room at night and a battle to the death begins.
You won't really care, because the writing is so bad and the story so nonsensical that it's just a parade of actors whose agents have some explaining to do for casting them in this dull retread of better horror films.
Patricia Arquette (True Romance, Boyhood) is Lily Woodhouse, who runs the staff and the entire property with an iron fist, a shotgun and a lot of yelling.
Heather Graham (Boogie Nights, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me) barely registers, she's given so little to do as Sharon, one of the occupants who are on a mission to kill Asia. Neighbor Kevin (Tom Felton from "Harry Potter) is an idiot who's also on the chase.
The fight scenes are a bizarre mix of well staged action and Laurel & Hardy battles with no flow, inconsistent tone and an unwavering ability to not generate intended laughs. Based on the trailer, I expected laughs, but it has far more rhythm than the full length film.
I love dark humor and have fallen pray to deep enjoyment of 90 minutes of stylized carnage before, but this one is done with so little clear intent or tone that it just sits in front of you as blood splatters every wall.
There is one scene with Beetz wielding a flaming axe that rises above. It's just one in which she shows superb skills and training, but it has enough originality to rise above the rest of the film. Beetz deserved a better film around her.
Writer/Director Kirilll Sokolov said he was inspired to make the film after moving into a new apartment and later seeing Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby". He's no Polanksi, bringing little new to the film. The hotel is designed like Dante's Inferno, with each floor a level of hell. There's a lot of meat on that bone. Sokolov manages to nibble very little of it.
By the time James Remar shows up voicing the head of a pig, I had to laugh a little.
That thing should have been around the whole film, I might have stayed more interested.
An aimless, bloody but stupid splatterfest, THEY WILL KILL YOU only slayed my good will, earning a D. The sheer effort of Beetz in the lead role willed me back from an F.
Comments