Like a Grindhouse Ready or Not

The world is definitely going through a phase of “haves and have nots” right now. The middle class is getting pushed down, poverty is on the rise, and those few oligarchs and billionaires seem to be taking more and more of everything, leaving little left for the rest of us. It explains why, increasingly, we’re getting stories of rich people acting evil and abusing the middle class. When you see it in real life, movies are there to shine a light on it even harder… sometimes with horror, gore, and devil worship.

Ready or Not came out in 2019 and it felt like such an awesome, singular film. A darkly comic, pitch black film about a woman pitted against her new in-laws as they are forced, due to a pact with the Devil, to try and kill her so they can maintain their power, wealth, and influence. She fights back, and wins, eventually coming out on top while everyone in the family that stood against her (spoilers) explodes in glorious bursts of gore and viscera. It did everything it set out to do and told a fantastic, hilarious story in the process.

Naturally, since it did well, a sequel was going to happen. Ready or Not 2: Here I Come took its time going into production, with its creative team (the guys of Radio Silence) first working on a couple of ScreamWhat started as a meta-commentary on slasher media became just another slasher series in its own right, the Scream series then reinvented itself as a meta-commentary on meta-commentary. films before coming back to the film that really helped them make their name. It rolled out in theaters this Spring and then, within a week of its own release, was met by another film telling practically the same story. Both are about powerful cabals of rich people sacrificing women to the Devil to maintain their power. One is a direct sequel to a popular film, the other is a grindhouse indie that revels in its setting and style. Did we need two of these films back to back, fighting it out in theaters? Probably not. But at least They Will Kill You has some style to it to help differentiate it. Whether that helps it succeed at the Box Office is another matter altogether.

The film follows Asia Reaves (Zazie Beetz), a woman recently released from prison after spending ten years in the joint for attempting to kill her abusive father. She was separated from her sister, with her younger sister, but has had a private investigator (Angus Sampson) working to track her down ever since. Right before her parole, the investigator gets Asia word that her sister, Maria (Myha'la), was last seen in The Virgil, an upscale high-rise for the elites, where she was working as a maid. That was a month ago. Now Asia had to find her and get her back.

The only problem is that the residents of The Virgil (not just the elites but even the maids and other servants) have all signed a contract with the Devil. They give him a sacrifice once in a while and he, in turn, gives them complete immortality. This is clearly illustrated early on after Asia fights off a pack of the residents (including Tom Felton as Kevin Sullivan and Heather Graham as Sharon Vanderbilt) that tried to kidnap her in her room. She thoroughly murders them, chopping off limbs and heads and seemingly finishing them off. But they all come back, the magic of Satan healing them one by one. That leaves Asia trapped in the hotel against an invincible army, having to fight for her life (and the life of her sister) while she plots a way to turn the tables on these Devil-worshipping bastards.

In construction They Will Kill You is just Ready or Not with some of the details changed. It’s like a bas relief rubbing of the previous film, or as they say in 22 Jump Street: “it’s the same case, do the same thing.” You’ve got the street smart woman trapped in a building with a bunch of rich assholes that want to kill her, but because she’s street smart she’s somehow able to fend all of them off and win the day in the end, turning the tables on them despite the fact that they have the power of Satan behind them. Swap out Ready or Not’s Samara Waving for Zazie Beetz and you have the same movie. Do the same thing… and it does.

Now, these are one-to-one films in all their beats and moments. While the plotline and expected resolution does, more or less, conform to the template set by Ready or Not, the style of the film is different. Ready or Not feels like a much more traditional slasher film (just with really good production values). They Will Kill You, though, goes for a grimier, grindhouse style. It feels like the kind of film that would have been made if Quentin Tarantino had been a producer on Ready or Not. It has that kind of aesthetic.

For starters, it is gorier, and in a way that feels even sillier than you’d expect. The first time Asia cuts the limb off one of her attackers it results in a spray of blood that’s more fitting in an Evil DeadStarted as a horror cheapie to get the foot in the door for three aspiring filmmakers -- Raimi, Tappert, and Campbell -- Evil Dead grew to have a life of its own, as well as launching the "splatstick" genre of horror-comedy. film than a stately horror movie. We get long takes, smash cuts, title cards, and interesting camera angles, all of which give this a more interesting, and far less standard, vibe. This is an exploitation version of a haves-vs-have-nots horror film, and it makes for something that does feel very different even as it’s going through the same motions. I enjoyed watching the film for all its crazy camera angles and fun, explosively gory moments, but I can’t deny I did feel like I’d seen the film before.

Bear in mind I haven’t even gone to see Ready or Not 2: Here I Come yet, and critics are saying that one, too, is just the same film all over again. Already I feel like I’ve seen this story enough times, and between They Will Kill You and the first Ready or Not that only makes twice. There’s really only so much you can do with the concept of “rich people stalk a single woman to sacrifice her to the Devil”, and, in a way, it’s kind of weird we’ve gotten three films all about that same story, two of which released within a week of each other. It went from fresh to well trod ground quickly.

That also makes They Will Kill You feel like a much shallower movie because of it. If this had been the only film in this (suddenly a) genre, that would be one thing. It was flashy, stylish, and with a story that felt interesting and unexpected. But to have three of them now, all telling the same thing the same way, you start to wish that someone could have said, “let’s maybe twist this story around a little bit more just to find a new angle.” A few years back we had You’re Next, which was also sort of about a single woman caught in a mansion while killers tried to take her out, and that one didn’t even need to rely on Devil worship to motivate its story. Somehow that feels even more singular now that so many others want to equate being rich with Satanic glory.

I don’t want to diminish all the things that this film does well. It’s delightfully gory and it absolutely revels in its grindhouse aesthetic. Zazie Beetz is fantastic in the lead role, easily playing the hard-as-nails fighter while still showing vulnerability when it’s needed. The movie does everything it sets out to do really well, it just unfortunately came out after two other films (both Ready or Not movies) had already done the same thing. It’s too much, too quickly, without much that is new or interesting about the story.

If you’re watching They Will Kill You in a vacuum I can see how you’d love The Will Kill You. On its own merits it’s pretty good (maybe not stellar, but certainly pretty good). But with Ready or Not already out there, and its sequel literally playing in the theater one screen over, it’s really hard to see how this is the best version of the story out there. It’s different, but it doesn’t find its own hook to really make it that much more interesting. It’s the law of diminishing returns, and we’re already starting to see it run out of steam quicker than any fan of the genre could have imagined.