Timo Tjahjanto's May the Devil Take you is a silly family melodrama that turns into an even sillier horror/possession movie that is, like most of the 'Mo brothers output, heavily influenced by Sam Raimi in general and Evil Dead in particular. This one goes beyond their usual energetic homage and adds in whole elements from Raimi's masterpieces like the camera following around a disembodied energy that can possess people, a cabin in the jungle and ghouls that can only be described as deadites.
Lesmana Wijaya (Ray Sahetapy) is an overnight rags to riches story. His secret? A pact with the Devil Iblis, of course. But something went sour and now Lesmana's lost all his money and his health; he's now in a vegetative state, his flesh erupting in bloody pustules and his organs failing. He recovers conscience just long enough to puke black blood all over the face of his son's girlfriend.
His family converges on his old house in the middle of the jungle to see if they can find something to sell. They arrive at the same time as Alfie (Chelsea Islan), Lesmana's estranged daughter from his first marriage, which leads to some tension as there's no love lost between them for reasons that will be explained during the movie. We take her side anyways, as the second wife (Karina Suwandhi) is coded as a complete harpy - I don't speak Indonesian, but just the way she pronounces Alfie's name is so over the top it'd make a daytime soap's villain grit their teeth with envy.
The family drama is short-lived, though: Soon someone tears some seals off and breaks open the door to the basement and the mother is immediately possessed, turning into an unholy, scenery-chewing abomination that starts terrifying both her kids and Alfie. It looks like the patriarch tried to renege on his deal, and the ghost of the priestess that brokered the agreement has come back to collect all their souls.
It's a fun, goofy movie, full of well made but pretty cheesy scares - at first figures in the background popping up to deliver Blumhouse-esque jump scares, progressing to more physical threats as the deadite attacks Alfie and her step-siblings (Pevita Pearce, Samo Rafael and Hadijah Shahab). I think my main problem is that the possessed are just as likely to mug goofily at the camera as they are to bite a chunk off someone's arm; At one point the possessed mom even starts wagging her tongue at us like fucking Gene Simmons. Definitely not the sort of Demon you want to emulate if you're trying to be scary.
The script (also by the director) doesn't really break any new ground and is pretty contrived, but its worst crime is that it gets pretty repetitive; At almost two hours, the film drags quite a bit. Still, there's a lot of mayhem packed into the latter half, delivered with Tjahjanto's usual verve and visual invention and a mean undercurrent of black humor.
It's not a hugely gory movie, but injuries abound and they all look painful. The makeup is superb, if a bit (unwittingly) funny in a couple of places, and the sound design is - like so much of the rest of the movie - so over the top it's almost charming.
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