When the Devil Goes on Vacation to Jakarta
Every now and then, a horror film comes along that doesn’t just knock politely on Hell’s door—it kicks it open, throws a Molotov cocktail inside, and dares Satan to come out and play. May the Devil Take You (Indonesian: Sebelum Iblis Menjemput) is that film.
Directed by Timo Tjahjanto, Indonesia’s reigning madman of blood and chaos, this 2018 supernatural horror gem doesn’t merely flirt with evil—it marries it, moves into its decaying villa, and starts redecorating in gore. Imagine Evil Deadmoved to Bali, doused in kerosene, and filmed with the conviction of someone who’s personally offended by subtlety.
And it’s glorious.
The Family That Slays Together
At its core, May the Devil Take You is a family drama—if your family drama included satanic pacts, demonic possession, and a patriarch so morally bankrupt he makes King Lear look emotionally well-adjusted.
The story follows Alfie (Chelsea Islan), the estranged daughter of wealthy businessman Lesmana Wijaya (Ray Sahetapy). When Dad falls mysteriously ill—read: cursed by the demon he sold his soul to—Alfie is summoned to the family’s old countryside villa, a house so ominous it probably came pre-haunted. There, she meets her stepmother Laksmi and her half-siblings, all of whom are searching for money and instead find… well, Hell.
Before long, someone opens a door they shouldn’t, demonic energy fills the house like bad Wi-Fi, and soon everyone is vomiting blood, levitating, and performing interpretive dance for Satan.
Possession, Property, and Parental Guilt
Tjahjanto’s script takes a simple premise—“Daddy made a deal with the devil”—and spins it into a supernatural soap opera drenched in viscera. The villa becomes a gothic blender where greed, family resentment, and literal hellfire mix until you’re left with something both horrifying and darkly hilarious.
Lesmana’s downfall is presented through old newspaper clippings (because demons apparently love the press), charting his rise from broke businessman to billionaire, complete with a suicide, a second wife, and a suspiciously fast-growing fortune. By the time he’s lying comatose in a hospital, you already know the devil’s coming to collect—with interest.
The moral here? Never sign contracts written in Latin, especially if they promise “great wealth.” You’ll get wealth, sure—but you’ll also get a ghost priestess who crawls out of your basement like a particularly vengeful yoga instructor.
Chelsea Islan: Indonesia’s Bruce Campbell (But Hotter)
Let’s talk about Chelsea Islan, because this movie wouldn’t work without her. As Alfie, she’s the perfect mix of toughness, trauma, and “I’ve had enough of your demonic nonsense.” Watching her navigate a literal hell house full of possessed relatives feels like witnessing someone survive both The Conjuring and a very bad family reunion.
She screams, fights, bleeds, and still looks like she could file her taxes afterward. She’s not the typical horror damsel—she’s a reluctant warrior dragged into her father’s sins, and she fights back with both rage and mascara intact.
By the film’s end, she’s crawling out of a pit of hair, mud, and sin like she just won a spiritual triathlon. If there’s any justice, Islan should have her own action-horror franchise by now.
Timo Tjahjanto: A Filmmaker Who Needs an Exorcism (and a Hug)
Director Timo Tjahjanto has been quietly (and bloodily) building a reputation as Indonesia’s king of modern horror (The Night Comes for Us, V/H/S/2). Here, he crafts a cinematic fever dream that’s equal parts Evil Dead, The Exorcist, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre—but somehow still uniquely Indonesian.
His camera work is manic, gleeful, and occasionally possessed. It zooms, tilts, and shakes like it’s being directed by a ghost who’s had too much caffeine. But the chaos works—because May the Devil Take You isn’t trying to be clean. It’s sweaty, angry, and alive.
Every frame feels soaked in dread, rot, and religious unease. The lighting alternates between blood-red hellfire and the gray despair of Indonesian cement architecture. Even the house itself becomes a character—breathing, groaning, and swallowing people whole.
Practical Effects, or: The Art of Goo
Modern horror often leans on CGI to do its dirty work, but Tjahjanto prefers the tactile nastiness of old-school effects. And May the Devil Take You is gloriously filthy.
We’re talking projectile blood, oozing wounds, black vomit, hair sprouting from every conceivable orifice, and one particularly nasty basement scene that looks like someone dropped a blender into a haunted septic tank. It’s the kind of body horror that makes you want to take a shower with holy water.
Yet somehow, amid all the viscera, there’s artistry. Every grotesque effect serves the story’s emotional core—the sins of the father literally staining his children. It’s disgusting, yes, but it’s also beautifully thematic.
The Devil’s in the Details (and in the Basement)
What separates May the Devil Take You from a hundred other possession films is its cultural specificity. This isn’t a Western exorcism with crucifixes and Latin chants—it’s steeped in Southeast Asian folklore, where ghosts and demons are part of the daily spiritual landscape.
The evil here isn’t an outsider invading—it’s homegrown, festering in the cracks of family legacy. The cursed priestess buried beneath the house isn’t just a monster; she’s a reminder that evil doesn’t disappear when you ignore it—it waits.
By the time Alfie faces her final descent into the muddy pit (complete with hair tentacles and motherly hallucinations), the film becomes a metaphor for generational trauma: you can’t escape what your parents buried—you have to dig it up, scream at it, and set it on fire.
And honestly, that’s more therapeutic than half of modern self-help books.
Humor as Holy Water
Despite its relentless bleakness, May the Devil Take You is also slyly funny. Not in a wink-at-the-camera way, but in that “Oh God, this is so awful it’s almost absurd” kind of way.
There’s a perverse delight in watching each family member meet their gooey demise. The stepmother’s possession plays like Real Housewives of Jakarta meets The Exorcist, and when dolls made of human hair become murder weapons, you can’t help but chuckle nervously.
Tjahjanto knows the line between terror and laughter is razor-thin—and he dances on it with the confidence of a man who’s made peace with his nightmares.
The Devil Takes, but He Gives Back
By the time the smoke clears, Alfie crawls out of literal Hell, covered in muck but spiritually reborn. It’s grotesque, operatic, and strangely hopeful. The film ends with the villa silent again, the basement door still open, as if daring you to come back for the sequel (which, thankfully, exists).
May the Devil Take You isn’t just a horror film—it’s an exorcism of cinematic complacency. It takes the familiar tropes of possession and gives them a wickedly Indonesian twist, balancing cultural myth with grindhouse insanity.
Final Verdict: Possessed, Profane, and Perfectly Entertaining
If you’ve grown tired of Hollywood’s sanitized horror, May the Devil Take You is the blast of sulfur-scented air you didn’t know you needed. It’s brutal, stylish, and gleefully evil—a film that grabs you by the soul and drags you, kicking and screaming, into its blood-soaked basement.
Final Score: 4.5 out of 5 Satanic Hair Dolls.
It’s messy, it’s mad, it’s magnificent—and if this is what the devil has to offer, maybe damnation’s not such a bad deal after all.
