They Will Kill You 2026 Movie Review Trailer

 Kirill Sokolov’s Tarantino-inspired foray makes genre promises it fails to keep.

In Kirill Sokolov’s *They Will Kill You*, a sword-wielding Zazie Beetz infiltrates a satanic cult ensconced in a luxury hotel, aiming to rescue one of the waitresses before she is used as a human sacrifice. All the pieces are in place for a wild and brutally entertaining midnight-movie action flick—something the film undoubtedly is the moment the bloodshed begins. However, twists to its premise soon end up souring it conceptually, resulting in rapidly diminishing returns, with derivative formal flourishes that largely call to mind other, better films. By the time the final credits roll, the experience proves utterly exhausting.

A dramatic, rain-soaked prologue shows a battered Asia Reaves (Beetz) fleeing her abusive father, only to leave her teenage sister behind. A decade later, we find our heroine posing as a newly hired waitress—still amidst a downpour, linking the two scenes before we even know exactly how—as she arrives at an old Manhattan hotel known as "The Virgil," a name evoking the Roman poet who, in Dante’s *Inferno*, serves as the guide to the Underworld. However, *They Will Kill You* is far from subtle regarding its setting; accordingly, the hotel walls appear adorned with overtly satanic décor.

Director: Kirill Sokolov
Writers: Alex Litvak, Kirill Sokolov
Stars: Zazie Beetz, Tom Felton, Patricia Arquette

Greeted by the mysterious manager, Lily (Patricia Arquette, playing the role with a distractingly unsteady Irish accent), Asia’s first night takes an unexpected turn when cultists—clad in baggy raincoats and pig masks—infiltrate her room; She, however, catches them off guard with a machete and an arsenal of other weapons, while jarring *zoom-ins*, splashes of blood, and a *Spaghetti Western*-inspired soundtrack burst forcefully into the foreground. It is, without a doubt, a spectacular introduction. Yet, the situation becomes simultaneously more surprising and more disappointing the instant a supernatural element of the premise is revealed: severed limbs and the rest of the carnage immediately revert—as if by magic—with body parts snapping and twisting back into place, thereby hinting at the nature of the pact these villains have sealed with the devil. 

This plot twist makes thematic sense in theory, but in practice, it immediately drains all the force and tension from the scene the next time Asia launches into a fresh, bloody rampage in her quest to rescue her sister. What, exactly, is Asia’s plan, and where must she go to achieve it? These are good questions, but the general geography of the hotel is never clearly established, and the action scenes—though brimming with cartoonish violence—never seem to have any objective beyond the carnage itself. If we add to this the fact that every slash, every cut, and every gunshot loses its impact—due to the villains' temporary immortality—what we are left with is a series of ideas for energetic action beats, strung together with scant connective tissue.

For better or worse, Sokolov displays his influences without concealment; chief among them are Timur Bekmambetov and Quentin Tarantino (with whom his previous feature film, *Why Don’t You Just Die!*, drew numerous comparisons). However, while Tarantino’s revenge classic, *Kill Bill*, drew upon more obscure references and sublimated them into something novel—not to mention something dramatically moving—Sokolov relies on very broad emotional strokes and borrows heavily from the familiar imagery of generational touchstones and fan favorites on IMDb, such as Park Chan-wook’s *Oldboy*. Hints of other, slightly older influences are also discernible (such as Sam Raimi’s *Evil Dead* films), blended with some more recent global hits—specifically, those from the Telugu cinema phenomenon S.S. Rajamouli. 

Nevertheless, these disparate pieces serve only to underscore the disjointed nature of the director’s sources of inspiration. In *They Will Kill You*, visually striking compositions exist in absolute isolation, devoid of any transcendent meaning. Each beat of action—repetitive by nature—adopts only the most superficial semblance of those moments that might prompt one to pump a fist in excitement, set to a musical selection with an almost Pavlovian effect; the final result, when considered as a whole, proves profoundly unsatisfying.

Tarantino’s body of work looms large over Sokolov, yet—working within that very same vein—he manages to do at least a few things differently. For starters, his barefoot heroine is presented in a manner less fetishistic and more akin to Bruce Willis in *Die Hard*, where exposed soles become a source of vulnerability. Sokolov also employs a much shorter lens, distorting and exaggerating space with every camera movement, while his cast moves with an almost choreographic cadence. 

There exists a different version of this film—not one that actually exists, but one that can be imagined—in which the action choreography would have been staged with greater intentionality, dictated by the deliberate rhythms of the actors themselves. Scenes involving crawling through air ducts and cramped spaces abound, taking on a quality of great significance; likewise, a particularly innovative sequence stands out—one that recalls, curiously enough, that millennial generational milestone *Toy Story 3*—in which Asia is pursued by a disembodied, animatronic eye whose perspective is streamed in real time to its host, in true Mrs. Potato Head fashion.

These sorts of outlandish concepts—bordering on the absurd and capable of eliciting genuine laughter—prevent *They Will Kill You* from being an absolute failure; however, for a film steeped in vigilante vengeance to truly work, it also requires some glimmer of humanity. The only things we ever learn about Asia are that she learned to fight in prison and that she wishes to atone for her one mistake: having abandoned María. 

For their part, the film’s villains—played by recognizable faces, including Heather Graham and Tom Felton—lack almost any personality whatsoever, and even that superficial villainy so characteristic of the genre, which strips much of the appeal from Asia’s acts of retribution. The film certainly attempts to sketch out class struggle and racial issues as underlying thematic pillars (the employees trapped in "The Virgil" building are, for the most part, non-white women, while the villains are wealthy Caucasians); however—much like the plot and action as a whole—these themes lead nowhere and ultimately feel like mere symbols imposed out of obligation.

Beetz, for her part, embodies a blood-drenched heroine who is wonderfully committed to her role—one undoubtedly destined to inspire at least a handful of Halloween costumes. Yet, there are few moments where the film’s frenetic action truly manages to translate into those cathartic instances—capable of eliciting a collective shout of jubilation, a resounding "Fuck yeah!"—that the picture, by all appearances, aims to provoke. 

The on-screen justification for vengeance rests on the premise of deserved punishment; however, nothing in *They Will Kill You* is allowed to acquire moral dimensions—whether simple or complex—given that we know absolutely nothing about who is dishing out the beating or who is receiving it. Likewise, the film’s sense of "just deserts" proves utterly insipid, as it is constantly stripped of any real significance by allowing the characters being dismembered to simply shake off the blow and try again. And while one might be tempted to think that all of this leads to a climax where, mercifully, this absurdity finally ceases, one would, regrettably, be mistaken. In the end, the only thing that truly dies is the viewer's patience.

Watch They Will Kill You 2026 Movie Trailer