Every year, the same thing happens to me. I seek to watch a ton of new movies, but after the first couple of months of the year, I worry I’m way off the pace I need to be on. There are just aren’t a lot of worthwhile flicks released between January and March. So I end up having only seen a few movies those first few months.

And yet, even with that, I ended up seeing a personal best 117 new releases films in 2025! And then 2026 started, and… whoops!… I have only seen, like, 20 of them through the end of March. So the nervousness starts setting in that I need find more movies to watch! This is the problem with having both goals AND anxiety, folks.

Maybe that’s why I’ve been to the theaters three times in the last seven days; I just need to knock out as many new releases as possible to make myself feel better. And this run concluded with having seen They Will Kill You this weekend! This action-horror movie was not heavily advertised, but I did catch a few trailers for it in recent days, and it seemed entirely worth watching in cinema.

They Will Kill You kicks off with the story of two young sisters. They are on the run from an abusive father, but he quickly catches up to them when they stop at a gas station to supply up. The older sister, played by Zazie Beetz, shoots the father in self-defense, but she also flees the scene when the cops show up.

Suddenly, ten years pass, and we see Beetz’ character approaching a large building known as The Virgil. She is let in from the rain by Lilith, who claims to be in charge of the business. It turns out that Beetz has applied for an opening as a maid at The Virgil.

After being shown around the hotel, Lilith takes Beetz to her room right as another hotel employee rushes out of it. Beetz doesn’t think much of this happenstance, and when she goes to shower, she misses the message that he scrawled on her bathroom mirror: They Will Kill You!

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+ The action sequences are fantastic. They are shot extremely well and eschew a lot of modern action conventions (shaky cam / rapid cuts). There are longer takes used to impress the viewer with the stunt work and timing of everyone involved, and you can clearly see the action taking place before you. It looks glorious. I comment on this anytime I see a modern movie with excellently filmed action beats, but it’s always true: I just don’t love the Bourne-ification of fight scenes where there are a dozen cuts for every punch.

They Will Kill You is also EXTREMELY brutal and vicious and blood-soaked. “Evil Dead blood fountains” level of blood-soaked. This bears itself out very early on in the first real fight scene that we witness when one character get decapitated, and we see comical sprays of blood from his neck. So make no mistake: this movie is having fun, and it wants you to have fun, too.

+ Zazie Beetz slays her role in this. She is powerful and striking. She never over- or undersells the moment, but is instead spot-on for what the story requires of her. She is passionate and fiery when she should be and cool and disaffected when that is required from her. I have been a fan of Zazie’s since her stint as Domino in Deadpool 2. Between that and what we see of her in They Will Kill You, I’m willing to check out anything she has a large role in going forward. I missed Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die in cinema, but she was apparently in that, too. So now I simply have to catch it on streaming.

– The movie starts strong, and we get some solid violence and creepiness in the first 15-20 minutes. The problem comes in that the movie can’t sustain that pace because there is backstory and exposition to occasionally dole out. And when the film slows down, you really feel it applying the brakes. You kind of wish it could just go! go! go! and never pace down to bother with a plot. 

I have been conflicted on other action extravaganzas previously that have temporary down time. Films like Crank or Shoot ‘Em Up… some do the pauses well, others don’t. It’s a spectrum. I would put They Will Kill You somewhere in the middle of that. The breaks don’t completely derail the film, but they so halt it somewhat.

– Tom Felton and Heather Graham feel kind of wasted as minions to Patricia Arquette. You spend the time they are on screen feeling like it would be better if they had more to do or had more character to them since they are such recognizable faces. You could have recast them with virtually any unknown actor on the planet, and it wouldn’t have been noticeable. 

I guess Felton and Graham are at least in more moments of the movie than Arquette’s other subordinates, but… just barely.

OVERALL

They Will Kill You is fun. There is no two ways about it. It’s not groundbreaking cinema by any stretch, but at 1:35 in length and with some truly absurd action set pieces, it’s absolutely worth a watch.