In They Will Kill You, a young woman fights back against a satanic cult that has chosen her for its annual human sacrifice. There’s a bit of heroism in the mix. But by and large, the film is a gory spin cycle of over-the-top dismemberment and gutting, draped in demonic ceremony and profanity.
Asia Reaves is no girl-next-door type.
Asia’s life has been hard, and her knuckles are harder. She was hammered into this chiseled, hard-edged state by her last 10 years behind bars. In the penitentiary where she was incarcerated, you either learned how to fight and rip or you were carried out in a bag.
Today however, Asia is out of prison and stepping up to the door of a New York, high-rise hotel called the Virgil. Ostensibly, she’s there to take an entry-level maid’s job—she’s wearing the right dutiful smile and carrying the right papers.
But in reality, Asia has come to the Virgil determined to use whatever tough-as-nails grit she’s developed over the last decade to find her long-lost sister, Maria.
You see, it was because of Maria that Asia went to prison in the first place. As a teen, Asia had tried to protect her younger sibling by shooting their abusive father. But in a way, Asia also deserted her sis with that choice. She’s going to make up for that now.
Maria is here, working at the Virgil, and Asia is pretty sure that her sister has been dragged into some shady rich-people stuff at the hotel. There are rumors flying everywhere about this place. But big sis is here now. Asia’s prepared for anything, armed to the teeth. Just let these suckers try and stop her from getting Maria out of this place.
What Asia doesn’t realize, however, is that this 100-year-old hotel isn’t quite what it seems. It’s actually home to a satanic cult. And every year, they welcome some young woman into their midst for a special night, a special ceremony: a human sacrifice.
This year, Asia is that welcomed-in offering.
Looks like this is going to be a dickens of a family reunion.
In flashback, we see a teenage Asia doing everything she can to protect her younger sister. And that carries over into the present. In the face of impossible circumstances, Asia refuses to back down and abandon Maria at the Virgil. And even though Maria has made specific choices of her own, she recognizes her sister’s loving sacrifice and is willing to put herself in danger for that love. Eventually, Asia expresses her love and verbally apologizes to her sister for leaving her alone for the last 10 years.
A man at the Virgil, Ray, is willing to break a long-honored pact and put himself at risk to defy what he recognizes to be a great wrong.
[This section contains spoilers.]
As mentioned above, the Virgil is home to a group of wealthy demon worshippers. In fact, the Virgil itself is a satanic temple adorned with pentagrams and upside-down crosses. And we learn that each year, the temple’s reigning demon requires a human sacrifice.
We see a ceremony in which a demonic entity (in the form of a horned, beast-like shadow) gets summoned into the severed head of a large pig. The head then comes to life and makes demands with a growling voice. During the course of that ceremony, several people get sacrificed to this entity in gruesome ways.
We’re told that human devotees—those who verbally dedicate their souls to Satan and write their names on the severed pig head—are granted immortality in exchange for bloody sacrifices: “A life for a life.” People refer to this spiritual entity repeatedly as “My Lord.”
Because of the demon’s sacrificial pact, people return from death and magically reconstitute their bodies. “Even if there’s one piece left, even a slice of skin, it will keep living on its own,” someone explains to an aghast Asia.
As Asia crawls through a secret passageway in the body of the large hotel, she witnesses activities representing different spiritual vices on different floors of the building. …
… For instance, one floor of the hotel features a massive room where scores of naked people are engaged in lustful sex. (The camera glances quickly at a room full of writhing, naked bodies.)
In addition, we see cleavage exposed. And a woman’s lack of undergarments is visibly evident when she gets cold and wet.
Blood and gore spews regularly throughout the film as people are shot, bashed and flayed open in visceral and gushingly grotesque ways.
Heads get chopped by a machete and a large axe. (One leaping attack literally slices a man from crown to crotch.) People get hit in the mouth and face with a machete. Hands, feet and legs get lopped off, the camera closely examining the gory effects. A room full of people attacks Asia, and she pounds and batters them with a flaming axe—leaving the room littered with burning bodies. Necks get sliced open by knife blades.
Several people get hit in the face by close-range shotgun blasts. (In one case, the skull fragments and brain matter splash down onto Asia’s face and open mouth.) The shotgun also rips open massive holes in people’s bodies. People get torn open by large blades and pointed objects; they’re impaled on poles. Several people fall from great heights and splat open upon contact with solid surfaces.
With the magical reconstitution of some people’s open wounds, we also see new gory demonstrations. In some cases, the fleshy parts of bloody dismemberments and decapitations stitch themselves back together. In one instance, a severed eyeball rolls and maneuvers around on its own until it is discovered and squished in someone’s fist.
Of course, Asia does not magically heal throughout the film, so her bloody wounds remain open and leaking. She gets battered and thumped around at every turn. When her hand gets pinned to the wall by a machete, she rips out her hand to free herself. She gets stabbed in the back with a screwdriver, hacked at and impaled by large blades. She gets hit in the face with the barrel and butt of a shotgun. Asia also takes on attackers in long combat sequences with various weapons. Eventually she gets covered head to toe in her own blood and the chunky gore of her attackers.
When a child attacks an adult, he gets punched in the face and knocked to the floor. People get impaled by chain-attached hooks and hoisted into the air. A woman gets crushed by a weighty falling object. Etc.
A masked attacker licks a sleeping Asia’s toes. We’re told that he likes to rape the yearly female sacrifices. In one scene, someone grabs Asia’s face with a chloroform-soaked rag—it leaves Asia staggering and groggy.
There are 32 f-words and a dozen s-words, joined by seven uses of “b–ch” and one or two uses each of “h—” and “a–hole.” God’s name is paired with “d–n” once, and Jesus’ name is abused once as well. There’s a crude exclamation involving male anatomy. Someone uses an offensive hand gesture.
Various people in the hotel celebrate by drinking wine and cocktails.
A young girl steals some candy.
Back in 1978, the movie I Spit on Your Grave shocked audiences with an abused and tormented female protagonist who fought back against horrible people in decidedly gory ways.
Ever since, Hollywood has tried to find new and innovative ways to incrementally push that “brutal female revenge” theme for box office dollars. The vile foes in these films have become ever more despicable. The women, more viscerally vengeful.
That leads us to They Will Kill You. This version of the feminine flesh-ripping tale is a manifestly derivative cross between the gut-spilling of a Kill Bill movie and the scamper about action of a Die Hard pic. The hellcat heroine is battle-tested and spews f-bombs. And the enemies are nothing less than immortal demon worshippers who can be chopped, butchered and have their brains repeatedly splattered.
Oh, and They Will Kill You is designed to be so gruesomely nasty that audiences will find it funny.
However, this pic is little more than a 90-minute-long, gash-gush-giggle, cinematic spin cycle. You’ll know it’s over when everyone onscreen is either bloody meat or covered from head to toe in, well, bloody meat.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
