A woman takes a job as a housekeeper in a NYC high-rise, unaware of the building’s history of disappearances. She soon realizes the community is shrouded in mystery.
“They Will Kill You” is a gory horror-comedy about a deadly satanic cult. It blends extreme violence, dark humor, and stylish action to create the next cult classic for midnight screenings. Inspired by movies that have established the slasher action gorefest, it aims for chaotic fun and over-the-top excitement. However, it struggles to translate its influences into a unique identity. Unfortunately, I came out pretty disappointed in the film.
A boilerplate script dressed up with enough style to distract from how thin the story and characters actually are. “They Will Kill You” does a serviceable job of echoing the vibes of “Ready or Not,” with a dash of “Evil Dead,” but it never establishes a unique identity of its own and instead feels like it’s chasing the energy of better movies doing similar evil demonic slasher vibes.
It’s obvious the filmmakers love this genre and were genuinely trying to have fun with it, and I can respect that. There are flashes of creativity throughout and a handful of genuinely entertaining scenes. The problem is that those moments feel completely disconnected from the rest of the movie. Every time it starts building momentum, the paper-thin plot drags it back down.
The awful ADR is consistently distracting, and much of the dialogue delivery feels flat for a cast I know is capable of much more, but the script doesn’t meet the level of talent on board. The action and kills are initially entertaining, but the movie leans so heavily on repetition that the chaos starts feeling routine rather than exciting.
More than anything, it feels like a movie that thinks it has a stronger voice than it actually does. It’s excessively gimmicky, over-the-top, and occasionally gives off KILL BILL’s ‘The Bride’ vibes, just without the precision, confidence, or polish needed to pull that style off. There are pieces of a fun cult-horror splatterfest here, but they never come together into something greater.
I wish I liked this more, but by the start of the final act, I was ready for it to wrap up. Not a bad time, and it admittedly looks gorgeous in 4K with Dolby Atmos doing a lot of heavy lifting for the presentation, but it’s ultimately a forgettable, watered-down version of movies that have tackled this exact territory far better. I’ll probably forget most of it in a few weeks.
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