May the Devil Take You Too

May the Devil Take You Too (Sebelum Iblis Menjemput: Ayat Dua) (2020)

Runtime: 110 minutes

Directed by: Timo Tjahjanto

Starring: Chelsea Islan, Widika Darsih Sidmore, Baskara Mahendra, Hadijah Shahab, Lutesha

From: A few different Indonesian companies

Shudder’s streaming channel on their platform dictated what I watched last night. Originally I had something else in mind-not related to horror-but I looked tuned into the Shudder app on my TV to discover if a film was about to start. It was this, the sequel to something I saw on Netflix six months ago. In short, the first picture regarded a family patriarch who made a Faustian bargain to achieve fame & fortune; eventually, that turned out as well as you’d suspect. Too was a film likely to have been watched sometime this year, so it made sense to stay on that channel.

The sequel returns lead girl Alfie and a step-sister. Via circumstances, they are forced to help some youths who are dealing with a similar problem; cue up the pale black-haired ghosts who vomit black bile! Those are a cliché and Asian horror is not a subgenre I’ve dived too deep into. Be that as it may, while it was like the first in being too long at almost two hours and there’s not as much gore as you’d expect for a picture directed by Timo Tjahjanto, this doesn’t mean there was a lack of entertainment, thrills, and chills from a movie mainly set in one location and was built as a thrill ride. The poor CG was regrettable, but… 

Nice atmosphere, a lack of cheap jump-scares, and expanding the story told in the first film made this a worthy sequel. To be frank, I do prefer the action films from Tjahjanto, which meant that the inclusion of action elements was welcomed by me. The Night Comes for Us is an extremely bloody and visceral action film well worth seeing on Netflix for genre fans; the recent news that Tjahjanto will make his Hollywood debut by directing Nobody 2 is delightful & increases my desire to see the sequel. With any luck, this sojourn to Hollywood will turn out better than it has for many foreign directors throughout history.