When in Doubt, Add More Screaming
Timo Tjahjanto’s May the Devil Take You Too is the cinematic equivalent of turning your amp from 10 to 11 without noticing the speakers were already blown. It’s louder, bloodier, and more chaotic than the first film—but not necessarily better.
It’s as if someone took the original, circled everything that sort of worked, wrote “MORE” in red marker, and never bothered to ask, “Should we, though?”
You still get possessed bodies, satanic bargains, black bibles, and enough demonic snarling to qualify as a wellness hazard for your speakers. But the magic trick this time is less “terrifying descent into hell” and more “you left your plot in another pair of pants.”
The Plot: Trauma Group Therapy, But With Moloch
It’s been two years since the first movie, and Alfie is still having a rough time. This is understandable: if your dad sold your soul to a demon and your entire world went to hell (literally), you don’t exactly bounce back with yoga and smoothies.
But before we can really settle into her psychological fallout, the movie throws her into a whole new nightmare. She and her half-sister Nara are kidnapped by a group of ex-orphans: Leo, Marta, Kristi, Budi, Jenar, and Gadis. These walking therapy sessions with legs all grew up in an orphanage run by Ayub, a sadistic human trash fire who abused them and also worshipped Moloch.
They eventually burned Ayub alive in the cellar because apparently social services were unavailable—and now they think his demon-infused spirit is cursing them. One of their group, Dewi, has died in a supernaturally suspicious way. So their big plan? Kidnap Alfie, whose dad once used a black bible, and force her to help them break the curse.
This goes about as well as you’d expect. The ritual fails, Ayub’s spirit is unleashed, and the film settles into a kill-them-off-one-by-one structure, sprinkled with demon lore, betrayals, and more screaming than a stadium tour.
The Orphan Ghost Club: Too Many People, Too Little Time
On paper, the idea of a group of traumatized adults dealing with the supernatural fallout of childhood abuse is rich material. In practice, the movie mostly uses them as demon fodder with backstories stapled on.
There are so many characters—Leo, Marta, Kristi, Budi, Jenar, Gadis, and the late Dewi—that the film has two options:
-
Take its time building them up.
-
Hurl them at the demon like confetti.
It enthusiastically chooses option two.
You get glimpses of their shared history, a few quick flashbacks of young versions being abused, some heartfelt shouting about guilt and curses—but very little that sticks. By the time most of them die, you don’t feel much beyond, “Right, that one.”
Budi gets a bit more development, especially toward the end, but the rest are basically walking Post-it notes labeled “past trauma” and “future corpse.”
Alfie: The Franchise Workhorse
Chelsea Islan does her best to keep the whole unholy mess grounded. Alfie remains the most compelling presence in the film even when the script is throwing buckets of nonsense at her.
She’s traumatized, cynical, and very, very tired of demons. You can almost hear her thinking, “Again? We’re doing this again?” every time someone opens that cursed book.
Unfortunately, instead of deepening her arc from the first movie, the sequel mostly uses her as a supernatural utility tool:
-
Need someone to read from the black bible?
-
Need someone who conveniently knows how demonic contracts work?
-
Need someone for Moloch to taunt spiritually?
Alfie’s here, bleeding from her eyes, doing emotional heavy lifting while the script keeps throwing new lore at her like it’s desperate to set up a spin-off game.
There are cool moments—especially when Alfie has to tap into the same darkness that ruined her life just to survive—but the emotional resonance is drowned out by the sheer volume of “Look, more demon stuff!”
Gadis: The Plot Twist You Can See from Hell
Gadis, played by Widika Sidmore, is meant to be the big twist character: the one who knew more than she let on, the one who was never really a victim in the way everyone assumed.
We eventually learn that:
-
She wasn’t actually killed by Ayub.
-
She faked her death.
-
She killed Dewi.
-
She’s basically signed up as Ayub and Moloch’s biggest fan.
On a psychological level, the idea of her developing twisted loyalty to her abuser as a coping mechanism could have been genuinely chilling. Instead, the film races through it like it’s reading off a shopping list.
Gadis ends up feeling less like a tragic, complex survivor and more like a late-game miniboss with a backstory DLC you didn’t download. She slices through characters, cackles, and chews scenery, but the emotional weight just isn’t there.
Demons, Demons Everywhere, But Not a Scare to Think
There is no shortage of horror imagery here.
You get:
-
Possessions
-
Body contortions
-
Hellish flashbacks
-
Black bibles
-
Rituals gone wrong
-
Resurrected abusers
-
Moloch being offended by suicide, because apparently demons have HR policies
And yet, for all the grotesque visuals and occult chanting, the film rarely feels scary. Exhausting, yes. Frenetic, absolutely. But scary? Not consistently.
The first movie had a tighter, more focused sense of dread: one family, one curse, one house of horrors. Here, the sequel tries to scale up the mythology and ends up diluting the tension. It’s so busy escalating that it rarely pauses to let a single moment really sink in.
When everything is at 10 all the time—flashing lights, screaming, lunging demons—it all starts to blur together into a demonic wallpaper pattern.
The Black Bible and Other Plot Devices
The black bible, which should be the most ominous object in the room, ends up feeling like a supernatural Swiss army knife. Need to summon something? Black bible. Need to fight something? Black bible. Need an excuse for Alfie to get corrupted for a bit? Black bible, baby.
The mythology around Moloch and Ayub has potential, but the film seems more interested in using it as a justification for more set pieces than actually exploring what any of it means beyond “deal with devil = bad, obviously.”
Moloch reviving Alfie at the end because suicide offends him is a moment that should land like a philosophical gut punch: “You don’t own your soul; I do.” Instead, it mostly feels like the movie saying, “Relax, there’s going to be a third one.”
Style Over Substance, Blood Over Brains
To be fair, May the Devil Take You Too isn’t boring. It moves quickly, it looks slick, and some of the set pieces are fun in a theme-park-haunted-house way. There’s an energy to Tjahjanto’s direction that keeps you from ever checking your watch.
But by the end, you might find yourself asking what, exactly, all the chaos added up to. The trauma of the orphan group is sketched rather than explored. Alfie’s ongoing torment is recycled rather than deepened. The mythology expands outward while emotionally shrinking inward.
It’s like being served a second plate of dessert when you’re still full from the first: technically, it’s more of what you liked, but your body is quietly begging for something with substance.
Final Verdict: May the Devil Take the Script Doctor Next Time
May the Devil Take You Too is the kind of sequel that insists on going bigger when it should have gone deeper. It’s not a total disaster—there are solid performances, stylish horror moments, and enough frantic energy to keep gore fans entertained.
But as a follow-up, it feels strangely hollow. The potential for a truly disturbing story about abuse, guilt, and demonic exploitation is definitely there. It’s just buried under a landslide of jump scares, expository yelling, and demon theatrics.
By the time Moloch resurrects Alfie and basically says, “Not yet, we need you for the next movie,” you may find yourself siding with the demon—not out of evil, but out of shared exhaustion.
