Abhiroop Das
Helmed by Kirill Sokolov, ‘They Will Kill You’ is a fresh spin on the action–comedy genre, where a new housekeeper has to survive the night in a building full of evil satanists. From the moment she sets foot in the luxurious residential high-rise that is the Virgil, Asia Reaves can tell that something is deeply wrong. Unsurprisingly, the building turns out to be a trap designed by the elite to prepare their ritual sacrifices. However, Asia isn’t like any other person, and is packing an armory of her own. As war breaks out, the hunted soon becomes the hunter, unleashing a fury that leaves every corner of the building soaked in blood. By the end of the film, however, Asia realizes that the way out of this hellscape lies not in contesting its rules, but in weaponizing them. SPOILERS AHEAD.
They Will Kill You Plot Synopsis
‘They Will Kill You’ begins with Asia and her little sister, Marcia, trying to escape their abusive father. After getting cornered at a mart, Asia resorts to shooting at her father, but escapes when the cops come in, hoping that they will take care of Marcia. A full decade passes by, and we meet Asia again, pretending to be someone else as she gets hired as a maid at the Virgil, an elite residential complex in Manhattan, New York. From the moment she steps in, however, Asia notices that something is wrong with the place, from how well-guarded it is to how everyone of the residents feels. That night, Asia sleeps with a nagging suspicion that there’s someone watching her room, and in the next few hours, her fears come true.
From the vent emerges a mysterious, cloaked figure donning a pig-face mask, and though he tries to knock Asia out, she manages to overpower and knock him out first. However, this is just the start of her nightmare, as several more cloaked figures enter her room with the same intention. What they don’t know is that Asia has a collection of weapons as well, and she is not here to be a maid, but to rescue her younger sister. A flashback reveals that Maria was shortly returned to her father, whereas Asia was arrested and had to learn how to fight while behind bars. After she got out and learned that Marcia had been hired at the Virgil, which is infamously linked to disappearance cases, Asia resolved to step in before matters got any worse.
Though Asia manages to kill every last one of the assailants, to her surprise, they all come back to life. The building manager then reveals that they are all satanists who made a deal for immortality in return for ritual human sacrifices. Asia, though, refuses to go out without a fight and manages to escape and get rescued by an immortal named Ray, who wants to help her escape. As they reach Marcia’s room, the sisters have a rather bitter encounter. Turns out, that Marcia has been chosen for a promotion to immortality, and her only options are to either reject and die, or kill someone to formally join the cult. When Asia ultimately gets caught and sent to the Satanic sanctum, however, Marcia chooses to sacrifice her own life in return for Asia to gain immortality, and thus, a killing machine is born.
They Will Kill You Ending: Why Does Maria Come Back to Life? Is She Immortal?
‘They Will Kill You’ ends with Maria miraculously cheating death, all thanks to a neat little trick Asia pulled before defeating Satan. While it might be easy to miss at first sight, Asia rips out a small piece of the pig head’s skin before dousing it in bleach and setting it on fire. We only learn about that bit of skin’s significance much later, after Asia manages to singularly defeat the entire cult. As Asia walks out carrying her sister’s dead body, we get the sense of a pyrrhic victory, and yet Asia doesn’t seem all too devastated about Maria’s death. In reality, she gambles it all on the pig skin to retain its supernatural properties, after sneakily replacing her name with Maria’s. Sure enough, the plan works, and Maria’s self-inflicted injury to the neck heals up just in time for their grand escape.
While the deal made by the cult secures immortality for anyone named on the pig’s skin, the actual process itself is done manually. There is no divine ink securing a person’s place in the Virgil, which means that the names can be added, removed, or edited as one pleases. Though the system has been riddled with fear and hierarchy for so long, Asia dismantles all of that with her final charge, forcibly writing Maria’s name over her own, before setting the pig head on fire. As flesh melts away, all the names etched onto the skin begin to disappear as well. This coincides with a now immortal Asia not just defeating or killing the cultists in sight, but also trapping them in positions that keep inflicting damage, be it by hanging, freezing, or impaling. When the boon’s effects wear off, these cultists are the first to die, all cursing Asia on their way out.
By swapping names at the last minute, Asia essentially games the system and ensures that both sisters get their shot at resurrection. Maria, who was prepared to sacrifice her life all along, is surprised at this turn of events, but by now has learned not to ask questions. In a way, this scene can be interpreted as Asia’s shot at redemption, as she refuses to repeat her mistake of leaving her sister behind. With the two of them now reunited, an entirely new future awaits, assuming that no cops come knocking at Asia’s door again. A question that goes largely unanswered, though, is whether Maria will now remain an immortal forever, or if she will choose to lead a normal, human life, voluntarily erasing her name from the record. Given how hard the sisters have fought for each other, however, it might be the case that they hold on to this superpower for a bit longer.
Will the Pig Head Resurrect? Is Satan Dead?
The question of Maria’s immortality is directly connected to the efficacy of the pig-flesh, as while it may have resurrected her once, the actual pig head itself is now gone. It’s possible that Maria’s reawakening process started in the seconds before the pig head went up in flames, meaning that it was just a one-time measure. A counter for that, however, remains in the final sequence, where we see the piece of flesh with her name still wiggling and full of life. It’s possible that what we see in this scene is simply a case of postmortem twitching, which can be observed among several animals, including pigs. However, given its supernatural connections, the more probable interpretation is that this is the last, unburnt piece of the pig, and has retained some of its devilish consciousness.
For the pig skin to not only move, but also retain its ability to bestow immortality means that a part of Satan is still trapped inside it. The question, then, is whether that supernatural consciousness can move out on its own, as the alternative means that Asia and Maria might get chased by Satan for the rest of their lives. After being defeated in a sword fight, Satan clearly has a bone to pick with Asia, and given what we know about the immortals’ ability to survive even as the tiniest bit of flesh, there’s a good chance that Satan might actually be surveilling the sisters with that piece of skin. All it would take is for him to latch onto another host and become an agent of chaos once again.
When Asia catches the pig-skin wiggling, she hurriedly pushes it back into her pocket, as if not ready to even bring up the subject yet. This can be a rather ominous sign of what’s to come, as the pig healing itself would very well mean that all the names written on it can reappear. However, given that the film builds its catharsis on the undoing of the immortality effect, this reversal is unlikely to come into play. Instead, chances are that Satan may never be able to recover that last bit of skin and will have to exist in shame knowing that he could not defeat Asia’s love for her sister. We know that the devil needs a physical form in order to directly affect humans, and with the pig’s head most likely burnt for good, this chapter of the story is unlikely to take on a new life.
What Happens to the Cultists? Will the Virgil Get Discovered?
All of the cultists lose their immortality at the end of the movie, and while some die brutal deaths at the hands of Asia, most get to escape and suffer in their own vulnerability. While Asia has the option and the ability to kill the remaining cultists, she chooses to save time and walk out with her sister in peace. The remaining cult members include both the original set of elites and the attendants who have climbed up the ranks in order to survive, which means that arbitrarily chopping them down is likely not the move that Asia wishes to make. Instead, all of these people, many of whom have probably not stepped out of the Virgil in a century, now have to bear the brunt of the real world, without any support from the devil to fall back on.
The last shot of the movie is a giant explosion that sends the Virgil building shaking and is bound to draw the attention of law enforcement. While the place has been shielded away from all external forces due to the rich and their mysterious abilities, Asia’s blood bath disrupts that system entirely. However, merely the entry of the police isn’t likely to do much, as many of these people are still some of the richest on the planet. For them, covering up the deaths of hundreds of people from the disadvantaged strata of society might not even be something particularly difficult, and it is now up to Asia to right these wrongs. As the only people holding the literal key to becoming immortal, Asia and her sister can dismantle the Virgil and its cult, with no resurrections in its future.
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