Boy Kills World Continues A Weird 11-Year-Old Bill Skarsgård & Famke Janssen Trend

Warning: spoilers for Boy Kills World.

Boy Kills World brings back together Bill Skarsgård and Famke Janssen, and it continues a weird trend between them that started 11 years ago. 2024 is a big year for Bill Skarsgård, as he’s starring in three very different but exciting movies: Boy Kills World, The Crow, and Nosferatu. First is Boy Kills World, an action comedy thriller directed by Moritz Mohr in his feature directorial debut. Boy Kills World stood out for its action, visual style, and big doses of blood, as well as for its main character, whose thoughts are presented to the audience through his inner voice.

Boy Kills World introduces viewers to Boy (Skarsgård), whose mother and sister, Mina, are killed by the Van Der Koy family. Boy is left to die, and the attack leaves him deaf and mute, but he’s rescued by a mysterious shaman who nurses him back to health and trains him. Boy then goes on a revenge mission against the Van Der Koy, with his main target being the head of the family, Hilda Van Der Koy (Janssen). Boy Kills World has a twist involving Hilda that completely changes Boy’s life, and it continues a strange trend between Skarsgård and Janssen.

Boy Kills World Reunites Bill Skarsgård & Famke Janssen As Son & Mother After Hemlock Grove

Hemlock Grove Also Had Skarsgård & Janssen As Toxic Relatives

Boy’s family was killed as part of an event known as The Culling, in which twelve people, gathered by Hilda, are killed on live television. As Boy killed Hilda’s henchmen and family members, he learned more about her and The Culling, including that Hilda created this event to protect herself from the shaman who rescued Boy. A twist in Boy Kills World’s third act completely changed everything the audience and Boy knew about his life by revealing Hilda was his mother, and that he had actively participated in killing dissidents, including the shaman’s family.

It was the shaman who made Boy deaf and mute by cutting out his tongue and burning his ears, and he used torture and psychedelics to distort his memories and turn him into a revenge weapon. Hilda was evil and manipulative, and when Boy didn’t show any signs of affection towards her after this big reveal, she ordered June 27, who was the real Mina, alive and well, to kill Boy. This isn’t the first time Janssen and Skarsgård played mother and son who have a toxic relationship, as they did so in 2013 in the Netflix TV series Hemlock Grove.

Based on Brian McGreevy’s book of the same name, Hemlock Grove took the audience to the title (fictional) town in Pennsylvania to meet the Godfrey family, the town’s wealthiest clan, led by Olivia (Janssen). Olivia had two children: Roman (Skarsgård) and Shelley, the latter a Frankenstein creature-like character as she died as a baby but was brought back to life. Roman, on the other hand, was an “upir” (a vampire), just like Olivia, who spent most of the series manipulating him before and after his upir nature took over.

How Boy Kills World’s Boy & Hilda Compare To Hemlock Grove’s Roman & Olivia

The Van Der Koys & The Godfreys Were Horrible Families

In both Boy Kills World and Hemlock Grove, Janssen played evil and manipulative mothers to Skarsgård, though they had different goals. Hilda used The Culling to protect herself, and even though she lost her son for years, she didn’t hesitate to order her daughter to kill him when things didn’t go her way. Olivia didn’t order Roman to be killed, but she did manipulate him to impregnate his cousin without even knowing it and later to kill to satiate his hunger once his upir nature was awakened at the end of season 1.

Boy Kills World didn’t show the dynamic between Hilda and Boy before his escape, but Hemlock Grove showed how toxic Olivia and Roman’s relationship was. Olivia was also overprotective and never hid how much she favored Roman over Shelley, and in the end, all this and more led Roman to become an egotistical, evil heir to the Godfrey empire and a ruthless killer. Although both Janssen’s characters met their fate, it doesn’t make up for the horrible things they put their sons through.