{"id":485219,"date":"2026-03-20T04:19:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T04:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/485219\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T04:19:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T04:19:11","slug":"zazie-beetzs-gonzo-action-horror-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/485219\/","title":{"rendered":"Zazie Beetz\u2019s Gonzo Action-Horror Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kirill Sokolov<\/a>\u2019s guiding principle for \u201cThey Will Kill You\u201d is simple<\/a>. At every moment, in every situation, the Russian director seems to be asking himself: \u201cDoes this look awesome?\u201d A lot of it does, from a moment that sees Zazie Beetz<\/a> blowing someone backwards with her shotgun (it\u2019s Heather Graham, which is especially entertaining, and it\u2019s not the first time it will happen) to the climax in which Patricia Arquette<\/a> fuses a severed pig\u2019s head to hers with the power of Satan. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s gory, excessive, hyper-stylized, and ultra-violent, all of which are meant as compliments. So how could a movie so hellbent on excitement feel so anticlimactic by its end?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\""Ready<\/a> \"Campeón<\/a> <\/p>\n

Sokolov \u2014 making his American studio debut after a pair of indies that were well-received on the genre circuit \u2014 is clearly a devotee of Quentin Tarantino, both by the typical definition and in the sense that his films are all remixes of his inspirations. Sometimes those things overlap, as in the scene where Asia (Beetz), the film<\/a>\u2019s self-trained samurai heroine, stands defiantly at the end of a hallway surrounded by the bodies of her adversaries and announces her vengeful intentions. <\/p>\n

The moment can\u2019t help but evoke Beatrix Kiddo calling out to O-Ren Ishii in \u201cKill Bill: Vol 1,\u201d<\/a> which was itself a callback to the formal introductions of Japanese ninkyo eiga.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One advantage of this double-backflip cyclical remixing is that Sokolov also has a deep respect for practical effects and stunt work. The director\u2019s enthusiasm transfers to Beetz, who spent four months training to do her own stunts in the film. The fighting sequences in \u201cThey Will Kill You<\/a>\u201d reflect this commitment, particularly a scene in which Beetz charges into a dining room full of robed cultists swinging a flaming ax. Sokolov hangs back, allowing the choreography to unfold in complete movements so that it\u2019s clear that these people, and in particular this movie star, are actually doing this crazy, audacious thing. And it does look awesome.<\/p>\n

\u201cKill Bill\u201d isn\u2019t Sokolov\u2019s only lodestar here, though. In practice, \u201cThey Will Kill You\u201d mostly plays like \u201cThe Raid\u201d crossed with \u201cRosemary\u2019s Baby,\u201d as Asia fights her way up nine floors of an exclusive Manhattan apartment building in search of her sister Maria (Myha\u2019la), who she thinks is being held captive by a group of ultra-wealthy Satanists. The truth is both straightforward and more complex, as Asia learns once the residents she kills come back to life. The burden of explaining how the hell that happened is on head housekeeper Lily (Arquette) and her husband Ray (Paterson Joseph), both of whom have a commanding enough screen presence to make the exposition bearable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another significant influence on \u201cThey Kill Kill You\u201d is Sam Raimi, whose \u201cLooney Tunes\u201d approach to extreme violence is another key element of Sokolov\u2019s style. Characters don\u2019t just get shot, they fly several yards backwards upon impact. The immortal cult members don\u2019t just regenerate, they skitter around with their spines sticking out of their neck holes after their brains explode into jelly. The most amusing of these cartoon touches is a stray eyeball that\u2019s left over after one of these goopy head shots, a sort of mascot for the movie that flings itself through passageways and up air vents by its exposed optic nerve. This was accomplished practically, with a puppet attached to a rod; some more obvious digital VFX later in the film are less charming, but they get the job done.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This all takes place against a stylized Art Deco backdrop dominated by shades of green and gold, paired with typical old-money accouterments like dark wood, antique paintings, and bronze relief sculptures illustrating the building\u2019s occult origins. Paired with the elaborate action choreography and Sokolov\u2019s fondness for in-your-face direction \u2014 think slo-mos, GoPros, and other flashy touches \u2014 the result is exciting for a while. Then it becomes overwhelming.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once the overstimulation sets in, it\u2019s difficult to move beyond it, and the resulting numbness may explain how a film that has so much going on can go from exhilarating to underwhelming over the course of 94 action-packed minutes. \u201cThey Will Kill You\u201d starts to lose momentum almost immediately after its hard-hitting action kickoff, and rather than escalate, its events start to blur together. A supernatural shock in the climactic scene briefly recaptures the magic of the inciting bloodshed, but the jolt doesn\u2019t last.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For viewers who aren\u2019t already fans of this type of cheeky, referential gonzo bloodshed, this means that the final hour of \u201cThey Will Kill You\u201d will feel like it lasts approximately forever. (The pun on the title writes itself.) For those who are, the effect is more like sitting on a slowly deflating whoopee cushion soaked in arterial spray.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Grade: B-\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey Will Kill You\u201d premiered at the 2026 SXSW Film & TV Festival. Warner Bros.\u2019 New Line Cinema will release the film in theaters on March 27, 2026.<\/p>\n

Want to stay up to date on IndieWire\u2019s film\u00a0reviews<\/a>\u00a0and critical thoughts?\u00a0Subscribe here<\/a>\u00a0to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings \u2014\u00a0all only available to subscribers.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kirill Sokolov\u2019s guiding principle for \u201cThey Will Kill You\u201d is simple. At every moment, in every situation, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2332,172180,2839,129,168212,56,54,55,172181],"class_list":["post-485219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-kirill-sokolov","tag-movies","tag-reviews","tag-they-will-kill-you","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-zazie-beetz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}