Anyway, now she’s out her first priority is to seek out Maria, with the aid of a friendly low-life played by Australia’s Angus Sampson, doing his gravel-voiced thing (Sampson fans stay calm: he’s only around for two scenes).
The information he supplies leads her to a hotel for the mega-rich known as The Virgil, which is a giveaway if you’re familiar with The Divine Comedy, since Virgil was Dante’s guide through the nine circles of hell, and the hotel has nine floors, which is all pretty cool, though perhaps not as cool as it sounded when Sokolov first thought of it – when he was 16, let’s suppose.
Never mind. Asia has already been warned there are nefarious things going on at the Virgil, where the hired help tends to disappear, the proprietors being careful to select undocumented immigrants and others who won’t be missed.
Still, when she steps through the door, the atmosphere of stagnation – symmetrically framed corridors stretching into the distance, carpeted in mouldy blue-green – suggests we might be in for a slow burn, more The Shining than John Wick.
That proves to be misdirection. I won’t get into spoilery details, but soon after, the story takes the first of its hard turns and becomes an open tribute to Kill Bill (here’s where the flashbacks filling in different characters’ backstories kick in). I would also wager that Sokolov is familiar with Gareth Evans’ modern martial arts classic The Raid, with Iko Uwais as the scrappy hero battling his way up the floors of an Indonesian apartment building, enabling the same set to be used over and over.
Heather Graham is one of the villains in the ghoulish theme park ride that is They Will Kill You.AP
The story here also has an outright supernatural component, which opens up a lot more scope for gore, often achieved through old-fashioned practical effects, and harking back to the jokey tone of Evil Dead 2 or early Peter Jackson (there is, for instance, an eyeball that scuttles around on its own).
More in line with expectations for 2020s horror is an element of unsubtle social allegory, although I don’t know how seriously we can take an attack on the rich that’s backed by Warner Bros and features familiar Hollywood faces like Patricia Arquette and Heather Graham among its villains.
Seriousness, certainly, is a long way down Sokolov’s list of goals: he’s having fun, and hoping we are too. They Will Kill You is not on par with any of the sources it borrows from, and though the running time is tight and the pace relentless, my patience with its weightless silliness gradually ran out.
Still, I felt a degree of fellow feeling with its spirit, as if Sokolov were saying, breathlessly, aren’t movies great? Yes, Kirill, they are.
They Will Kill You is in cinemas now