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Director Timo Tjahjanto is the man behind a couple of my favourite action films of recent years - Headshot and The Night Comes For Us - and, along with Gareth Evans, he co-directed a fun story for horror anthology V/H/S/2. Naturally, I was pumped to see May the Devil Take You, which some have described as an Indonesian The Evil Dead.
I can certainly understand the comparison - both are fast, frenetic, gory tales of possession that, for the most part, take place in an isolated rural building - but Tjahjanto's film cannot hold a candle to Sam Raimi's cult classic: although it features some well handled individual scenes, a messy, unfocussed plot makes it a confusing tale that is definitely less than the sum of its parts.
The basic plot revolves around a young woman, Alfie (Chelsea Islan), who goes to see the ailing father she hasn't seen in ten years. On discovering that he has left an old villa in her name, Alfie pays a visit to the building, where an evil presence lurks in the cellar. When her stepmother and step-siblings also turn up, the malevolent spirit is freed and, in one of the film's most effective moments, possesses the stepmother. One by one, the family members fall victim to the evil at large...
Superbly executed scenes of suspense (the girl with the hammer behind her back) rub shoulders with derivative Asian spooky nonsense (what is it with Asians and haunted hair?), while predictable scares fail to do the trick. At no point was I tempted to turn off or catch some Zzzzzs - a brisk pace ensured that - but I did find the uneven, jumbled nature of the whole thing frustrating. I certainly expected better from Tjahjanto.
score 5/10
BA_Harrison 13 December 2018
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw4509924/ |
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30-11-2019 14:43:29
