Review: May The Devil Take You Too

Director: Timo Tjahjanto

Screenplay: Timo Tjahjanto

Year: 2020

“May The Devil Take You Too”, original title “Sebelum Iblis Menjemput: Ayat Dua”, is the direct sequel to “May The Devil Take You”, released in 2018. It is not necessary to have seen the first one to enjoy the sequel as, although it precedes the events that took place in the previous one, they are not necessary to understand what happens in this one.

Two years after escaping from demonic forces, Alfie and Nara try to rebuild their lives. However, Alfie is still being haunted by her sense of guilt and frightening visions. The visions become growingly more frequent and menacing as the demonic force that wants to take their souls gets closer to them again.

After the success of the Indonesian horror movie “May the Devil Take You”, the director Timo Tjahjanto returns with a sequel to this movie. In this sequel, Alfie (Chelsea Islan; “Headshot”) returns to relive the demonic events from the first one, this time along with a group of orphans that kidnap her to help them fight the evil force that lurks them.

Early on, Timo Tjahjanto lets us know that he isn’t here to play with horror but that he has the genuine intention of terrorizing his audience. He achieves this throughout the movie, although he often goes for the cheap jump scare. The design and makeup hole some of the responsibility of making this movie scary, and it excels at it, except in a few stretches where the use of CGI is preferred and, unfortunately, it does not look as good.

“May the Devil Take You Too” has a runtime of approximately 110 minutes, in which it fails to deliver a compelling story and feels unnecessarily long. Much of the plot development is destined to end in a jump scare with no other purpose, making the plot feel flat and the characters uninteresting. This problem is more prevailing with the main character Alfie, by which trying to make her come out as a strong badass woman, ends up as an unlikeable character.

“May The Devil Take You Too” has several excellent moments of pure terror, but the plot that accompanies them doesn’t share the same quality, even when it tries to refuge in the nostalgia of the classic “Evil Dead”, from where it borrows a few ideas. Its long runtime is a problem, as so much time in a plot so simple and with linear characters cannot be justified. With these problems aside, this sequel is an excellent candidate to watch late at night and enjoy its jump scares and frightening visuals. A good drinking game to go together with it would be to take a sip of your drink every time the protagonist’s name is mentioned; you will surely not be able to remember half the movie afterward.