Johnny Showtime: THEY WILL KILL YOU

 by JB

The devil worshippers attending my most recent movie screening wanted to make me their human sacrifice...

Just kidding!

Because I have an almost unlimited supply of both free time and five-dollar bills, I am a sucker/the ideal demographic for Cinemark Theaters’ Secret Screening series. Once or twice a month, the fine folks at Cinemark show a new film, usually on Monday evening, and DO NOT advertise the title in advance. You pays your money, you buys your ticket, and you learns the movie only as it starts. In my experience, the film is usually a smaller budget or independent film that is opening that Friday; the studio is trying to garner some weekday workplace word-of-mouth. Other theater chains, I have learned, have similar promotions. Regal Cinemas call their series the “Monday Mystery Movie.” AMC Theaters call theirs “Screen Unseen.” Their “Scream Unseen” series is dedicated to new horror movies.

I must say, I have been delighted more than appalled by the Secret Screenings I have attended; I have never walked out, though I always leave the house thinking, “Well, if it’s really awful, I’ll just come home.” Through the Secret Screening series, I have seen what amounts to sneak previews of Your Monster, The Bikeriders, The Order, and the recent Dead of Winter, among many others.

As a frequent moviegoer, I'm used to knowing what I am about to see, so I can either temper my expectations or lean in with enthusiasm. These Secret Screenings throw me for a loop. I spend the entirety of the trailers trying to guess the film. Every trailer crosses another possibility off my list, knowing they would never show the trailer for the film du jour before the film du jour... or would they? The lights go down, the screen flickers... wait, are these the opening credits? A recent secret screening of Luc Besson’s Dracula: A Love Tale had me convinced for almost two full minutes that I was about to see some brand-new Czechoslovakian anime.

Cinemark’s Secret Screening last Monday was They Will Kill You, directed by Kirill Sokolov. “Good!” I thought, “It's a horror film. This is my wheelhouse.” I really knew nothing about the movie, but I'd seen the poster, which for some strange reason made me think it was about... African murder tribes?

Nope.

THE PLOT IN BRIEF: Asia Reaves (Zazie Beetz) answers a classified ad to be a maid at a creepy New York City co-op, not realizing she is entering a building where maids have... let’s say... disappeared over the years. Asia’s backstory reveals that she has not taken the job to merely... let’s say... change sheets and vacuum carpets.

I really liked this film. It was peppy. It was snappy. Though it owes a great deal to Quentin Tarantino, Sam Raimi, John Woo, and Wes Anderson (Doesn’t that sentence alone make you want to see it?) I liked the direction and the art direction. Loved the special effects. Loved the costumes. Loved the extensive fight choreography. I ran hot and cold on the sometimes incredibly athletic performances; I’m still trying to figure out what accent Patricia Arquette was attempting. Irish? Dutch? South African? Transylvanian?

I will say this: Because it was chosen for the Secret Screening series, I was really surprised by how gory the film is. Sure, it’s comic, over-the-top bloodshed, in the spirit of Evil Dead 2; but I wasn’t sure how the unsuspecting “surprise” audience would handle it.

SPOILER ALERTS FOR THEY WILL KILL YOU: They loved it—every decapitation, every arterial spray, every crazy speed-ramped fight scene, and especially an extended sequence during which Heather Graham’s eyeball goes on a solo spying mission throughout the high-rise. My fellow audience members ate it up! (The sequence, that is, not her eye. Yuck.)

Look out for another extended sequence wherein Ms. Beetz sets fire to some black-robed baddies I predict this scene will be shown whenever this film is discussed in the future, especially on the YouTube machine It’s that cool.

The 64-year-old man in me says, “Impressive.”
The 12-year-old boy in me says, “Neato!”
The Secret Screener in me says, "Now I know what the movie IS."
The pragmatic moviegoer in me says, “You should all go see They Will Kill You.”