Boy Kills World

Story byBased onProduced byStarringCinematographyPeter MatjaskoEdited byLucian BarnardMusic byLudvig ForssellDistributed by111 minutes^[2]CountriesLanguageEnglishBox office$1.7 million^[3][4]

Boy Kills World is a 2023 action comedy-thriller film directed by Moritz Mohr, in his feature directorial debut, from a screenplay by Tyler Burton Smith and Arend Remmers, based on a story by Remmers and Mohr. The film stars Bill Skarsgard, Jessica Rothe, Michelle Dockery, Famke Janssen, Sharlto Copley, Brett Gelman, Isaiah Mustafa, and Andrew Koji. Its plot revolves around a campaign of vengeance enacted by a martial arts expert, rendered deaf-mute by an attack that killed his entire family, whose thoughts are presented as an inner voice derived from a childhood video game (provided by H. Jon Benjamin).

Boy Kills World premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, and was released in the United States by Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions on April 26, 2024.

Plot

A young child known only as Boy lives in a city with his mother and younger sister Mina; he and Mina are best friends and often play arcade games together and draw illustrations of their future. The city is ruled by the Van Der Koy family, consisting of Gideon, Melanie, Melanie's husband Glen, and the head of the family - Hilda Van Der Koy. Once a year, Hilda gathers 12 people from the city to participate in The Culling, an event where all twelve are killed on live television. In preparation, Hilda gathers Boy, Mina, and their mother and shoots Mina and their mother, killing them but leaving Boy for dead, having made him deaf and mute. An unnamed shaman finds Boy and nurses him back to health.

Years later, Boy has fully grown and continues training with the Shaman in the hopes of getting revenge against the Van Der Koys; he has forgotten how his voice sounded like so he imagines his inner monologue as a video game he used to play with Mina, who he constantly hallucinates. While heading into the city to sell flowers, Boy sees Glen and Gideon arrive to round up the victims for that year's Culling. After being heckled by a woman in the crowd, Glen accidentally shoots a random civilian and a fight ensues as Boy watches, during which the Van Der Koy's enforcer, June 27, massacres the civilians, leaving only six alive who are captured by Gideon. Deciding to follow them, Boy hides in the trunk of Gideon's car. Ending up at a warehouse, Boy is attacked by Glen and several of his men as Gideon leaves with Melanie; Boy brutally kills the men and befriends a captive named Basho, who he interrogates Glen with. Glen reveals that Hilda hosts a party before The Culling every year and offers to help them but is killed when Basho accidentally drops a bench press he is holding onto his head, crushing it.

Basho takes Boy to meet the Resistance but discovers that everybody has been killed by the Van Der Koys except one member named Benny, whose lips Boy cannot read due to his beard. The three sneak into the manor and Boy makes his way to Hilda's dining room, where he decapitates her only for Gideon to reveal that it was a decoy. He orders June 27 to fight Boy and Boy nearly beats her but has a moment of weakness and is knocked out. Gideon gets ready to torture Boy when he wakes up but instead reveals that he wishes to help him; Hilda has created The Culling to protect herself from the Shaman but has been living in a bunker for years, believing she is doing the right thing although all the criminals have been killed years ago and The Culling is instead a massacre of innocents.

Melanie takes Boy to The Culling, where Hilda unexpectedly makes an appearance and is forced off the stage by Melanie after she mistakenly spots the Shaman and nearly fires a gun. The Culling begins as Boy uses a scalpel given to him in secret to free himself, reuniting with Basho and Benny who had sneaked into The Culling. Melanie, furious at Gideon, points a gun at his back in the control room. After killing most of the executioners, Boy is almost shot by Melanie but Benny jumps in front of him, being shot and killed instead. Melanie shoots Basho but is knocked out by Boy, who waits for her to awaken before impaling her face with the livestreaming camera dolly.

Boy and a badly wounded Basho head through the hallways leading to Hilda's bunker, where Boy is so focused on killing the guards that he misses Basho's final moments alive as he bleeds out due to the injury. Boy discovers Gideon, having been shot by Melanie, who gives him a key card to the elevator down to the bunker. The hallucination of Mina begs Boy not to kill Gideon but Boy doesn't listen and kills him, causing the hallucination to disappear. In the elevator, Hilda speaks to Boy through a camera/microphone, asking if what he's doing is worth it. When he shows Hilda a drawing drawn by Mina, she becomes horrified and orders the guards outside to stand down; June 27 takes Boy to Hilda, who resides in a large room.

As Boy enters, he spies paintings of the Van Der Koy, which include him and Mina. Hilda tells Boy that he is her son, having actively participated in killing dissidents, which included the Shaman's entire family; however, Boy refused to shoot the Shaman which led to his escape. It is revealed that Boy ran into the woods after the incident where the Shaman found him, nearly killing him but instead deciding to cut out his tongue and burn his ears; he used LSD and psychological torture to warp Boy's mind, making him believe that Hilda killed his family as he trained him to become a weapon. In reality, Boy has been murdering his real family while June 27 is revealed to be Mina, who is still alive.

In shock, Boy cannot give Hilda any signs of affection and she orders June 27/Mina to kill him only for her to stab Hilda in the head with one of her hatchets. Reuniting with his sister, Boy and June 27 make their way out of the bunker, violently killing the remaining guards who pose a threat to them. The two enter the elevator but it suddenly descends, where they are met by the Shaman who is proud of Boy, but orders him to kill June 27 as the last Van Der Koy. The three have a lengthy and brutal fight, where the Shaman and Boy are evenly matched but the Shaman repeatedly gets the upper hand, nearly crushing June 27's head and slicing open Boy's forearms, wrists, and legs with his sharpened necklace. Despite his wounds, Boy manages to force the necklace back into the Shaman's neck, slitting his throat and killing him.

Boy and June 27, both bleeding profusely, exit the bunker as they make way to their new future. A flashback shows the two playing the arcade game, where the voice announces "Player 2 Has Entered the Game".

In a post-credit scene, an unknown amount of time has passed as the two sit in the Shaman's hut awkwardly eating cereal and smiling.

Cast

• Bill Skarsgård as Boy, a deaf-mute man seeking revenge against the Van Der Koys. Mohr, the director, occasionally questioned his decision to make the character a deaf-mute amidst other challenges but ultimately had no regrets and was grateful for the outcome.^[5]
  • Nicholas and Cameron Crovetti as young Boy
  • H. Jon Benjamin as Boy’s "inner voice"
    • Benjamin also has a cameo as a Van Der Koy solider.
• Jessica Rothe as June 27, an enforcer working for the Van Der Koys
• Michelle Dockery as Melanie Van Der Koy, Hilda's daughter, Gideon's sister and Glen's wife
• Brett Gelman as Gideon Van Der Koy, Hilda's son and Melanie's brother
• Isaiah Mustafa as Benny, a resistance member
• Andrew Koji as Basho, a resistance member
• Famke Janssen as Hilda Van Der Koy, the matriarch of the Van Der Koy family
• Sharlto Copley as Glen Van Der Koy, Melanie's husband
• Yayan Ruhian as Shaman, Boy's mentor
  • François Chau as Shaman's voice
• Quinn Copeland as Mina, Boy's deceased sister who appears as a ghost

Production

Director and story writer Moritz Mohr pitched Boy Kills World with a short and previsualization reel to Sam Raimi and Roy Lee, of Raimi Productions and Vertigo Entertainment respectively, who were impressed and subsequently agreed to produce alongside Nthibah Pictures and Hammerstone Studios.^[6][7] Orion Pictures was initially involved at one point, but dropped out following the COVID-19 pandemic.^[7]

The film was announced on October 7, 2021, with Bill Skarsgård, Samara Weaving, and Yayan Ruhian joining the cast. In a statement, Nthibah CEO Simon Swart said the film would combine "real-world themes with a stylized look that is fresh, cool, and original, borrowing from the best of graphic novels."^[8] On October 28, 2021, Isaiah Mustafa joined the cast.^[9] In January 2022, Andrew Koji was added to the cast,^[10] and Jessica Rothe replaced Samara Weaving, who dropped out of project due to scheduling conflicts.^[11] Filming began in Cape Town, South Africa, on February 14, 2022.^[11][12] In March 2022, Famke Janssen, Brett Gelman, Sharlto Copley, Quinn Copeland, twins Cameron and Nicholas Crovetti, and Michelle Dockery were confirmed to star.^[13][14]

In August 2023, Swedish composer Ludvig Forssell was announced to compose the film's soundtrack.^[15]

Release

The world premiere for Boy Kills World was held at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2023.^[16]

In January 2024, Lionsgate Films and Roadside Attractions acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film and set it for an April 26, 2024 theatrical release.^[17]

Reception

Box office

In the United States and Canada, Boy Kills World was released alongside Unsung Hero and Challengers, and is projected to gross $2–3 million in its opening weekend.^[18][19] The film made $819,000 on its first day, including $500,000 from preview screenings. It went on to debut to $1.6 million.^[20]

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 60% of 112 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.5/10. The website's consensus reads: "Bolstered by Bill Skarsgård's all-in performance, Boy Kills World may offer just enough action thrills to offset its thinly written characters and predictable plot."^[21] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 46 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.^[22] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B–" on an A+ to F scale, while those polled by PostTrak gave it a 71% overall positive score, with 50% saying they would definitely recommend it.^[20]

References

External links

• Official website
• Boy Kills World at IMDb