Film Review #12: They Will Kill You
"Family reunions can be challenging."
As can killing immortal members of a Satanic cult, particularly when their names are written on a severed pig's head.
Regal Theatres Monday's Mystery Movie (3/23) was revealed to be They Will Kill You, co-written and directed by Russian filmmaker Kirill Sokolov.
Warning: there are spoilers below. And above.
A decade later, following her prison sentence, Asia arrives at "The Virgil" -- an exclusive, century-old building in New York that houses the wealthy and elite.
Posing as a maid under a false identity, she introduces herself to building manager Lilith Woodhouse (Patricia Arquette), and is shown to her room.
The conflict escalates quickly.
While sleeping that night, Asia is ambushed by several masked introducers, who are surprised to learn that she is armed and highly dangerous.
Asia promptly kills each of her assailants, including Kevin (Tom Felton), whose father will likely hear about this.
Well, that was... surprisingly easy.
When Asia confronts Lilith about the incident, however, she learns a horrifying truth: her attackers are immortal.
Now on the run from a resurrected Kevin and his murderous friend Sharon, Asia hides out in the building's ventilation system.
She uses a shotgun to blow Sharon's head to pieces, yet a grotesque and persistent eyeball continues to pursue our protagonist throughout the building.
Lilith's husband Ray, now overcome with guilt about his connection to such atrocities, explains that The Virgil serves as a temple to Satan, and its residents have made themselves immortal by performing human sacrifices.
While hiding away, Asia also reconnects with her sister, and is shocked by Maria's refusal to leave The Virgil, despite being informed of the horrors within.
Unfortunately, during Asia's prison sentence, Maria was forced to flee from their father and fend for herself.
It's true what they say: desperate times call for desperate measures.
When Maria first arrived at The Virgil, she was intended to be a sacrifice, but Lilith instead granted her an opportunity to gain immortality herself by sacrificing the new maid (who, of course, was not meant to be her sister).
The film's climax features both sisters and Ray joining the cultists in direct communion with Satan, who embodies the severed head of a pig.
It is revealed that in order to gain immortality within this cult, one's name must be written on the pig head.
For his act of defiance, the pig head removes Ray's name and forces Lily to murder her own husband.
The pig head then instructs Maria to write her own name and kill Asia -- instead, Maria writes Asia's name and kills herself.
With Asia now immortal, the power shifts in her favor -- she is able to defeat Lilith and bleach the pig head clean.
The cultists quickly die from their sustained injuries, Asia sets the pig head on fire, and flees The Virgil with her sister's body.
Before the credits roll, Asia reveals that she cut her own name from the pig's head and changed it to read "Maria".
Maria resurrects, and the sisters drive off into the proverbial sunset as The Virgil explodes in the distance.
My rating? 6 out of 10.
Simply put, They Will Kill You is a Tarantino-esque bloodbath.
Perhaps They Will Kill Bill would have been a more fitting title.
As a viewer, you must be willing to sit in a theatre filled with laughing spectators while excessive amounts of blood spurts comically in all directions for 94 consecutive minutes.
During rare moments when the film decides to take itself more seriously, Sokolov's project shows great potential.
Nonetheless, each plot twist following the revelation of the cultists' immortality feels unoriginal and quite predictable.
I wanted to love this film, but that villainous severed pig head was my final straw in a 6/10 rating.
What were your thoughts on They Will Kill You? Feel free to leave a note in the comments below, let's discuss :)
Here are some other films I've seen lately:
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