Zazie Beetz slices her way through a satanic cult, but the film also reignites a bigger conversation about Black women, survival, and what Hollywood keeps asking us to endure.

It’s all in the title: They Will Kill You. The horror film dropped its trailer with Zazie Beetz starring as a newly hired maid who scores a job at The Virgil — a creepy old building, one that would make any New Yorker rush past its heavily gilded doors. And then there’s that pesky pentagram embedded in its roof. But we have to assume that she really needs the money.

Once Beetz’s on-screen ego is inside, the doors lock behind her. Not one or two, but many. She even makes a sly joke about it.

Over the next two minutes, we watch as Beetz slices and dices her way through a group of satanic-worshipping killers with one collective goal in mind — to serve her up as their monthly human sacrifice. In between the gore, she fires off expletives and one-line zingers that reassure us, despite the blood and carnage, she’ll survive.

In a sense, Hollywood is answering a long-standing demand from moviegoers. There’s been a push for women — especially Black women — to be center stage as leading survival protagonists. Resourceful and quick-witted, they’ve been MacGyvering their way out of danger through sheer wit and grit, characteristics that mirror the real-life endurance many women have had to tap to succeed, or even more earnestly, to exist.

But another question lingers: Has this become a trope that Hollywood has come to rely on too heavily? From Run Sweetheart Run (2020), where Ella Balinska is literally running for her life as her date forces her into a killing field through the streets of Los Angeles, to countless thrillers where Black women must confront death just to live, it’s a pattern that’s hard to ignore.

Yes, we’re making headway on screen visibility. But the evolution should be stories where Black women don’t have to face violence, death and terror to prove our worth.

That would be the real escape.[Ebony]

“They Will Kill You” is the first project from Nocturna, a production company composed of producers Barbara and Andy Muschietti (“It,” “Mama”) and David Ellison’s Skydance Media. It’s also the English language debut of director Kirill Sokolov, who’s previously known for his Russian dark comedies “Why Don’t You Just Die!” and “No Looking Back.”  Alex Litvak (“Predators,” “The Three Musketeers”) co-wrote the film with Sokolov. Barbara Muschietti promises a people-pleasing mash-up of genres as she recently explained to Deadline:

“We shot it in South Africa last year, and we are very much near the finish line. It’s a lot of fun. It’s horror-comedy-action, and a great mixture and balance of those three. It’s something people will walk out of with a smile on their face, and it’s what the world needs right now.”

The Muschietti brother-sister producing combo are on a hot streak right now with “IT: Welcome to Derry” scoring big numbers for HBO. With exceptional creatives behind the scenes, Skydance in their corner, as well as New Line Cinema on board as co-financier and distributor, it’s hard to count out “They Will Kill You” as a box office success come next year.  

The cast includes Zazie Beetz, Myha’la, Tom Felton, Heather Graham, and Patricia Arquette. Sokolov wrote the film with Alex Litvakand, and the producers are David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, Dan Kagan, Andy Muschietti, and Barbara Muschietti. Executive producers are Russell Ackerman, Carl Hampe, Litvak, John Schoenfelder, Sokolov, Marisa Sonemann-Turner, and Rudi Van As.

Zazie Beetz plays a woman desperate for work who takes a job as a housekeeper in a NYC high-rise, unaware of the building’s dark history of disappearances. She soon discovers a sinister, possibly Satanic cult controlling the residents. 

Synopsis:

A woman answers a help-wanted ad to be a housekeeper in a mysterious New York City high-rise, unaware that she is entering a community plagued by numerous disappearances over the years.

They Will Kill You is in theaters on March 27.