Sokolov’s (et al) 2026 They Will Kill You does not really make sense but it is joyously bloody, flashy, and stylish in its madness. I could have gone either way with it but at the end I feel mostly satisfied. It was a good time.

Summary

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A person has reasons for getting into an exclusive apartment building in New York City [not sure how much would be considered spoilers, so let’s leave it at that, even if it is pretty obvious]. Nearly immediately, she is attacked by people in the building, kicking off an absolute symphony of violence, blood, smashed bodies, and gore all set wonderfully to a soundtrack.

Review (Spoiler Free)

I am around 95% sure that They Will Kill You makes no sense. Kirill Sokolov and Alex Litvak have written a script that for sure has words and Sokolov did some interesting direction, but so much of this movie is down to Isaac Bauman’s cinematography, Luke Doolan’s editing, and Carlos Rafael Rivera’s musical work that it is a full on team effort.

The end result is a storyline that is best to not be considered too closely played out with absolute aplomb as a stylish-as-hell [pun!] dance of blood, violence, and gore set impeccably to its soundtrack. It’s pretty, it’s loud, and the color of the season is very, very red.

Cut away visuals feeling like Wes Anderson scenes shoved into a 2005 Tokyo cyberpunk film help to sell us the extended fight sequences as our heroine sets axes on fire and unloads double-barreled shotguns. Tables flip up in the air, mattresses get holes blown in them, and multiple knives get shoved into backs — often to comedic effect. Sokolov has us laughing at the misfortunes of others but its ok because we never quite feel like the characters mind all that much [with some exceptions].

Just, and I implore you doubly-so on this, do not spend too much thinking about what any of it means. It will only get in the way of the good time you could be having as long as neck stumps spewing liters of blood is your idea of a good time.

Shout out to all the actors. Zazie Beetz and Patricia Arquette do a lot of heavy lifting as foils. Paterson Joseph is always a treat. Heather Graham and Tom Felton make fun villains. And Myha’la is the right amount of contrast to the confusion swelling around. Beyond this, all the residents of the Virgil were enjoyable, it’s just, well…let’s deep dive…

Deeper Dive for They Will Kill You

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS…

…this is your final warning….

Look, this movie is not subtle. It pretty quickly throws obvious Satanic imagery in your face and then contrasts it to a class divide that would have felt almost put upon in a 1950s movie (and no doubt has some people clutching their media-illiteracy pearls as being “WOKE,” gasp).

The Virgil, for goodness sake, has Nine floors. We later learn one is dedicated to lust and one seems to be gluttony. Good knows what the wrath floor or the greed floor might look like. If you did a Wikipedia search for depictions of Hell and just grabbed a few keywords, you’d end up with something like this.

So it’s kind of like a reverse Katabasis? Easy-peasy. Rich and powerful bastards? All good. Some sort of immortality plot? Ummm, hey, at least it allows the violence to increased. A honest-to-badness macguffin? Hell, yeah.

Only around the point that an eye is able to track a pair of escapees from some distance and convey enough information to drive the plot, we enter into absolute nonsense territory because why not more of that? Why not rip off body parts left and right to do various biddings?

You know what doesn’t work if you are a centuries old death cult requiring regular blood sacrifices to maintain immortality? Being rich and famous. Eyes on you is a bad, bad thing. How many cultists are there? The fuck room has a large number but later we see a the cultists + servants being a number that feels about equal. It’s like an old Doctor Who episode where they have eight extras and so two warring civilizations each have around eight people standing behind the people with speaking parts.

Patricia Arquette is a striking main villain and I’m for it, but outside of that the hierarchy is a complete mess.

Finally, stuff like being burned alive seems to be a legit problem. Flesh eating bacteria (maybe the immortality cures disease, I’ll say it does, movie probably said it does). What if a body is split perfectly in half? I need the director’s commentary trying to explain all this.

Seriously. Do not think too deeply. Just enjoy the hyperviolence.