May the Devil Take You is an Indonesian film that came out in 2018, and it's about a young woman named Alfie who learns a dark secret about her father's past. It starts off with a man named Lesmana (who we later learn is Alfie's father) making a deal with the devil, and then during the opening credits, we see a bunch of newspaper headlines that tell us about his immediate business success, his marriage to an actress after his first wife's suicide, and his eventual downfall.
When the story picks up again, he's in the hospital with a mysterious illness, and Alfie goes to visit him. While there, she has a terrifying encounter with an evil spirit, so she decides to go to her father's old house and look for answers about his condition. She bumps into her step-siblings and step-mother, and things quickly take a turn for the worse when the truth about Lesmana's past comes back to bite the ones he loves most.
Once the horror gets going, the film takes on a very Evil Dead kind of a feel. Much of it is very reminiscent of that franchise, even down to some of the small details, but it never sinks to the level of cheap knockoff. Writer/director Timo Tjahjanto takes elements from that beloved franchise and makes them his own in a way that feels comfortably familiar.
In fact, I was pretty impressed with Tjahjanto's directing in general. The film had a number of pretty spooky scenes, and I thought he struck a good balance between showing a lot of gore while also letting some of it take place offscreen. I never felt like the gore was over-the-top, but I also didn't find myself wanting the movie to show more.
In addition, Tjahjanto also shows a good feel for how long to linger on the suspenseful shots. There are a few times where you know something bad is going to happen to one of the characters, and the film makes you suffer in white-knuckled anticipation for just the right amount of time before finally releasing the tension and unleashing the pain.
And speaking of the characters, they're another strength of this film. While none of them are super fleshed out, I found them to be quite effective for the most part. You dislike the ones you're supposed to dislike, and the rest are all quite likeable. In particular, the main character Alfie and her step-brother Ruben are the standouts. Alfie doesn't have a great relationship with her step-family, but Ruben is able to bridge that gap and connect with her in a way that I really appreciated. It's nice to see genuine goodness and love in movie characters, especially in horror films filled with darkness and evil, and Alfie and Ruben's relationship is a bit of a bright spot in an otherwise rather bleak family situation.
All in all, I really enjoyed May the Devil Take You, and if you're a fan of gory supernatural horror (especially if you like the Evil Dead franchise), I think you'll enjoy it too. Netflix original films usually aren't very good, but I was pleasantly surprised by this one. While I have a few minor quibbles with it (for example, the characters made a few bizarre decisions that seemed to come entirely out of nowhere), I didn't notice any egregious flaws. It's a fun, well-directed horror movie, so if you're looking for something to watch on Netflix, you should give this one a shot.
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