The cheap joke currently doing the rounds is that They Will Kill You and Ready or Not 2 (out last week) are pretty much the same movie. And yeah, the basics - young woman is trapped in a deadly location by murderous wealthy Satanists and has to fight her way out while repairing her relationship with her estranged sister - are somewhat similar. Is there enough of a difference in their approaches to set them apart? Let's break it down.
They're both as much horror as action, but the angle of attack here is closer to a cartoony Sam Raimi-esque take than Ready or Not 2's slightly more grounded approach. Occasionally this will take the time to break out a memorable image, comic-book-style; likewise, the fondness for pulling back to show a tunnel crawl or corridor fight from an impossible angle gives this a nice visual flair.
The action (as with Ready or Not 2) does suffer a bit from the current Hollywood trend where the action is a big part of the story while never really being all that different from the action in any other story. It's very well done here, and there is the occasional moment of visual flair, but even when it's trying to be gritty it's really just people running through a set of poses - which can be impressive, but ever since John Wick made this style the mainstream we're all very much used to it.
Where this does step up is in the gore side of things. The twist here is that the rich Satanists have been granted immortality by their dark master, which means whatever you do to them - cut off limbs, blow off heads - it just grows back. Also, the severed parts have the ability to keep on keeping on, which comes in handy (as it were).
Zazie Beetz (as Asia Reeves) does an excellent job in the lead, so much so that the film feels built around her - her mix of exasperation and annoyance perfectly suits the over-the-top nature of the challenges she faces, while the occasional moment of more realistic emotion comes off well. She also does a good job of selling the fight scenes, which definitely doesn't hurt.
Lilith (Patrica Arquette) leads the forces of darkness with a wandering Irish accent that makes sense for the character but is still a little distracting, while Sharon (Heather Graham) is the standout amongst the expendable rich - she's the only one that seems like a plausible person, the rest are basically little more than unkillable goons.
At just over 90 minutes this isn't messing around, and there's enough variety to the action to keep things exciting even when an individual scene doesn't quite land. There's even a few well-thought-out twists in the big climax to make sure everything ends in a satisfying fashion without having to break the previously-established rules.
There's definitely room enough in cinemas for two movies about stressed-out arse-kickers taking down the Satanic rich - just maybe next time, don't release the two of them only one week apart.
- Anthony Morris
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