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If you look hard enough, everything’s a reference – especially since Hollywood has been making movies for over a hundred years now. If you’re a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, you might notice that one of the 2026 movie releases, They Will Kill You, pulls from the modern classic, and its writer/director told CinemaBlend exactly how.
As soon as Warner Bros’ They Will Kill You trailer dropped, the comment section was flooded with people talking about how much it reminds them of Tarantino’s beloved flick mashed in with great horror movies like Ready or Not and You’re Next. Here’s what writer/director Kirill Sokolov told us on the topic:
[Kill Bill] was [an influence] in a way. I was just thinking about the cult characters, they stuck with us and are characters that you want to dress up [as] and you want to follow and support and have this inspirational power. The Bride from Kill Bill for me was the last one that actually, like, really made me crazy.
A simple benchmark of whether a movie reaches “iconic” status is whether you dressed up as one of the characters and people can clock the character right away. Uma Thurman’s role as The Bride in Kill Bill definitely remains a Halloween favorite 22 years after its release. The writer/director of They Will Kill You was inspired by emulating the kind of “power” the character has represented over the years. As he added:
And I just always dreamt about trying to make a character like that… that will inspire people and that would be strong and has flaws, but also would be so kind of lovable. And I mean, Zazie, I think she managed to do that. She did an incredible job. And so that's why Kill Bill was a really awesome reference in that way.
Sokolov came up with the idea for They Will Kill You after moving into a massive 17-floor apartment building with his wife. It must have been an odd place to live because they started a “running joke” that it was owned by a cult. That then morphed into the filmmaker deciding to make the movie revolve around Asia, a young woman posing as a maid in an exclusive high-rise in order to find her long-lost sister Maria. It’s not long before Asia discovers she's trapped in a temple for Satan, and she is their latest intended sacrifice.
From a shot of Zazie Beetz’s feet to severed limbs to a rageful protagonist who fights her way through hordes of people, it’s not hard to see why Kill Bill is often talked about in association with this new release, which is now available to stream with an HBO Max subscription.
While They Will Kill You was certainly influenced by Kill Bill, Sokolov also pointed out the myriad of other references the movie has. In his words:
This movie also absorbs a lot of references for different types of genres and films from different countries. And it has a little bit like anime, influences, Hong Kong action movies, Japanese samurai movies and like Sam Raimi kind of horror elements.
And of course, Kill Bill is a reference in of itself to kung-fu movies, spaghetti westerns and anime films Quentin Tarantino was inspired by. If you dig They Will Kill You, Sokolov also shared his thoughts on a potential sequel in our interview as well. Until then, it feels like the two films would be a bloody fun double feature!
