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The goriest horror movie of 2026 hits theaters this week with the arrival of They Will Kill You. Directed by Kirill Sokolov, the film stars Zazie Beetz, Tom Felton, Heather Graham, Patricia Arquette, and Myha’la Paterson Joseph in a story about a woman who answers a help wanted ad to be a housekeeper for the mysterious New York high-rise, the Virgil not realizing that the building holes a community with a number of disappearances over the years. The film is Sokolov’s American directorial debut and a movie he says would be his favorite if he were a kid again, but it t urns out his actual favorite film from childhood was a big inspiration for his career.
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Speaking with ComicBook. Sokolov said that Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 2 was his favorite movie when he was 12 and that it’s Raimi’s filmmaking that made him feel like he could make movies himself.
“Evil Dead 2. That one was just like, I rewatched every second day and for like a couple of years. I don’t know. It was huge,” Sokolov said. “And it was also a huge inspiration in just like getting the idea that you can actually go and try and make your own movies because it’s so like Sam Raimi’s like way of directing movies is like so friendly people just think that you can go and try yourself. It’s so welcoming.”
But Raimi isn’t the only filmmaker who had a huge influence of Sokolov and whose influence can be felt in They Will Kill You. The director revealed that when people compare his new film to the work of Quentin Tarantino, it’s a compliment because he grew up on Tarantino’s films, too.
“It’s a huge compliment. I grew up watching his movies. I basically grew up watching movies from the 90s and that was a kind of big inspiration,” he said. “And also, as a movie geek and filmmaker who loves movies, I kind of follow the route he made using different references and bringing different genres and mixing lie spaghetti Western with samurai and kung fu all together. So, of course, it was like a workbook for me. But at the same time, this movie, I hope it includes so much more than just that. I am very happy but like every time I wish like it’s not only that.”
They Will Kill You Has Serious Literary Vibes
Sokolov’s inspiration in filmmaking doesn’t stop with Raimi and Tarantino, however. Part of the film’s structure is that each floor of the Virgil is different as Beetz’s housekeeper battles it out with the Satanic cult within the Virgil that seeks to make her their next sacrifice. For Sokolov, that structure is a lot like Dante’s Inferno — though not every floor was explored.
“The working title of this was Nine Floors of Hell, which sounds kind of like a terrible B movie so we decided to change it, but the idea of this building, Virgil, that each floor refers to Dante’s Inferno so they all kind of represent different scenes and that’s why they’re thematically different, different activities happening on them, different styles.”
The result, at least based on the trailer, is a film that brings a lot of action and plenty of gore as Beetz’s housekeeper brings the fight to her attackers. It pulls together the idea of an increasingly dangerous fight with the splatstick horror that is Raimi’s influence. And if reviews are any indication, it works. The film presently has an 80% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes.
They Will Kill You hits theaters on March 27, 2026.
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