Prepare yourselves for a bloody good time. This isn’t really something from the backlog if I’m being honest - it’s on the list yes but it’s also way to recent to be considered stuck in the log. Heck, it came to streaming (on a service i already pay for) the day after i did the last review, otherwise it probably would have been done then. Anywho, trailer tells me i’m going to have a violent cultist packed time, and I can dig that. I expected something like that “drew the hide and seek card on wedding night and now I’m a sacrifice” movie that I had fun watching but forgot the name of - so can’t go wrong unless blood showers aren’t your thing right? Strap yourself up, tonight They Will Kill You.

We start in the past, where we are introduced to a couple sisters running away from an abusive dad. Unfortunately, he’s not as unexpecting as they would have hoped, and he catches up to them. The older sister is strapped, and when he makes a move for them has the guts to shoot him - but it’s not fatal, and in her panic she abandons her sister. Much of the story after this is going to be a present time adventure that launches into the flashbacks to flesh things out as to what happened then - so I’m going to skip over that and get right to the core of things and leave the rest as pleasant little surprises for you. Our older sis has grown up and has gotten a job at a obviously satanic building - and not the good “consenting” style church of Satan type no. We are talking the kind of satanic house run by the worst people of all time - the rich! It doesn’t take long for our lead to find out she’s just walked into a real bad place (literally, it’s like 15 minutes into the movie when everything kicks off) and is now in a fight for survival against becoming a sacrifice for the rich. Better watch out though, not everything may be as it seems!

Actors are mixed here, but largely good. There some parts with the kiddos at the start where the line deliveries can be a bit eh, and some of the stuff can range the entire field of absurd. There will be some overblown stuff, there will be some oddly subdued stuff when it comes to performances - but I don’t feel it’s actually bad for the movie. Everyone here is doing a whole lot of stuff, and regardless of how corny it is the actors are treating it like they want to be there and give it what they can - it’s largely just what the movie is calling for can leave you wondering what the heck is going on. Think of it like a decent grindhouse flick - it won’t be for everyone, but the red band trailer would tell you that and if the name of the game is fun, these people are nailing it.

Characters get to have a bunch going on. Mystery - well, some kind of obvious mystery really, but whatever it’s still there. Pasts that come up and contain their own traumas that lead to decisions that could actually be considered building character. Yes, it is mostly all the lead that gets the character building parts, but it’s not something that really would have been necessary in the movie where the biggest bad guy pitch is “the rich and the Satan.” With that said, yeah, a lot of the team bad is just that - rich and cultist, looking to sacrifice folks so they can live forever. There’s also a kid whose kind of a little brat, and the movie contains probably one of the most “intrusive thoughts win” kind of scenes that would make a lot of folks that have ever had to deal with or raise snotty kids rather happy.

The setting is interesting. It’s not that it’s really out there or anything, but for something that’s effectively a single multi-level hotel, they do a lot with it. Secret passages, long halls, plenty of rooms - it all looks similar enough it makes sense but also varied enough that it doesn’t feel like we rented out a single floor of a hotel to shoot the entire movie in. Of course, the flashbacks all have different locations, so we do get a break from that brownish-yellow walls every now and then anyway. Costumes get to have some variance in the same way - the staff all wear the same outfits, and most the cultists also wear practically the same outfits (they do diversify their masks some). It’s used to good effect in one scene, but otherwise it fits the setting the movie is in and makes it feel rather believable. Our lead also stands out because of it, given she’s in some more everyday modern casual attire - which usually would blend and fade way in the background, but because the contrast to all the other more uniform costume designs really makes it easy to spot her out in any scene.

Effects do a lot of work here. When I mentioned grindhouse earlier I wasn’t entirely lying - there’s buckets of blood and some brutal take downs. I mean, it’s nothing as horrific as that one movie I watched where the dude wore another guy as a skin suit to sneak closer to his prey (now that’s something you just don’t unsee). It’s mostly that campy kind of dumb violence - like someone getting decapitated and then getting the classic “blood tube screwed up” samurai blood spray hosing the room down. There’s also a lot of stabbings that result in just as fun sprays, some varying levels of fire burns (like, clothes on fire not necessarily someone getting their skin charred burns), and probably the most brutal deaths being any time someone gets hard-tapped by the movie’s star firearm the double barrel sawed off. That one rearranges some parts a couple of different times. It’s also all done really nicely if you ask me - lot of that blood if not all of it is good old fashioned hosed onto folks, so you get that nice feel of actors reacting to it. There is some CG stuff in here that’s rather noticeable as CG - it’s not really bad though, it’s just not really fooling anyone into thinking it’s real is all.

Audio was good, but in typical me fashion is gone by the credits. It helps out the scenes, and taking a cursory glance although I might recognize some names - like RZA or Ryan Gosling (didn’t realize he did music) - it’s still nothing I listen to regularly enough to retain past it’s role in helping scenes out in the movie. Line deliveries can be a bit wacky on either side of the spectrum, but it feels fitting for the movie and it’s all balanced well. For the thinking folks, there’s probably a bunch but we all know I turn my brain off so let’s see what it can come up with this week. The rich eating the poor, family bonds, not judging a book by it’s cover, being smarter then devil pacts, and not taking things too seriously can go a long way for fun!

I enjoyed the heck out of this movie. Honestly, I might have to go and buy it so I can watch it again later - I had that much fun. Yeah, it gets kind of dumb and in is no way beholding itself to reality when there’s a chance to do something so absurd it could be cool. Sure, that first watch will leave you slightly confused as to what’s going on in the first twenty or so minutes - but it explains most the stuff you need and never stops picking the option that is going to lead to more fun. It’s the antithesis to that one gator movie that I’m still mad at all this time later. It would make a great double feature with the other devil worshipers movie if I could remember the dang name of it. If you aren’t bothered by violence and some quick flashes of the sex floor, this might just be the movie for you. You’ll get some laughs, and enough entertainment to rival the blood someone is gonna have to clean out of those carpets.

@IMDB

They Will Kill You (2026)