THEY WILL KILL YOU

After spending ten years in prison for shooting her abusive father, Asia Reaves (Zazie Beetz) is released and takes a job as a housemaid at an exclusive apartment building in New York City. She’s on a mission to find her younger sister Maria (Myha’la) who is already working there. Not long after arriving, Asia realises she’s stepped into a den of devil worshippers (including characters played by Patricia Arquette, Heather Graham, and Tom Felton) who are hunting her down. Turns out the building is home to a Satanic cult of wealthy elites who’ve been granted immortality, and they’ve marked Asia as their next human sacrifice to maintain their eternal life. Asia begins her survival rampage with gusto and since the residents cannot be killed, she is shocked when they regenerate after being dispatched. From this point on the story goes haywire, with people being sliced, diced, chopped, and slopped many times over, only to resurrect. Some parts are so over the top I laughed, but thankfully that’s okay as this is meant to be a dark comedy. While this film starts strong, the final act becomes even more surreal and absurd and it tanks. It’s hard not to compare this to the recently released movie ‘Ready or Not – Here I Come’ as they have several similar elements, namely a resilient female lead and her sister being pursued by rich Satanists through a building, but TWKY isn’t nearly as well executed. Its strongest aspect though, is the physicality of the stunts. Beetz really goes all out, performing as many of her own stunts as possible after training in mixed martial arts for four months. It shows! One spectacular scene features Asia wielding an axe that’s on fire and using it to take out a room full of cultists, which has an epically athletic conclusion – and it’s all Beetz. You won’t forget it in a hurry! Despite the expensive special effects and quality cinematography, the plot is B-grade at best and fails to provide enough substance to match the action. I really wanted this to blow me away but instead it sadly felt like a puff of wind.