After having sat through the first "May the Devil Take You" movie from 2018, then I must admit that I was definitely looking forward to seeing this 2020 sequel from writer and director Timo Tjahjanto.

Sure, it was nice to see Chelsea Islan return to play the Alfie character again, but boy this movie was a confusing heap of rubbish. That being said, sure, if you haven't seen the first movie, then perhaps there is some level of enjoyment to clench out of this terrible sequel.

But if you have seen the first movie, then you might want to skip of "May the Devil Take You Too" (aka "Sebelum Iblis Menjemput: Ayat Dua"),because it simply failed to deliver anything even remotely close to the first movie. The storyline told in this sequel was just rubbish. And it was difficult to take it serious and buy into it.

Visually, then "May the Devil Take You Too" wasn't up to the predecessor. The effects in this movie were just too bland and often looked downright horrible, especially the scene with the tentacles from the mouth. Wow.

There is no proper coherent red thread throughout the course of "May the Devil Take You Too". Everything felt just made up on the fly, as writer and director Timo Tjahjanto went along. As such, then the movie was less than mediocre.

And the characters in the movie felt like cardboard cut-outs milling about, lacking backstory, motivation, and just actually downright felt like faceless drones with no purpose.

My rating of this 2020 sequel lands on a generous, but less than mediocre four out of ten stars.

Believing she has survived the ordeal, the woman and her friend are kidnapped by a group of kids from an abandoned local orphanage also dealing with a similar spirit that they just defeated and want their help in defeating, bringing them into contact with a powerful demonic figure more dangerous than they expected.

For the most part, this one is just a notch below the original. This works best when it focuses on delivering on the atmospheric touches that result around the orphanage. Taking full advantage of the location with the long hallways, tight corridors and overall dark and gloomy presence, allowing for an endless succession of jolting jump-scares or chilling imagery that comes off quite well. With the initial scenes of the figure rising behind a victim and getting closer every time they close the light, seeing figures climb upstairs rapidly or showing something lingering just behind a victim unaware of it, the tactics used to create a chilling atmosphere. It works rather nicely once that turns into physical interactions where the spirits can interact with the children generating a slew of standout confrontations that are wholly impressive. The communication ceremony in the bereavement is the primary one, going from a seance to having the released spirit manipulate the furniture against them and finally showing the spirit possesses one of the other members and instigate a massive chase around the building. The various dreams she has documenting the ghosts tormenting her for being at the house are as a whole terrifying, and the finale is an absolute blast getting the various demons involved and focused on stopping each of the demons which is full of blazing action. Moreover, this one enhances the spectacular gore and bloodshed with fantastic results. The ghosts and demons are far more brutal and relentless in this one, breaking fingers or throwing victims into the furniture quite easily. The taunting and tormenting reach a stage where they're easily able to attack and graphically kill the others, resulting in heads getting ripped open, being smashed repeatedly against the floor resulting in a huge pool of blood in the area or even getting lit on fire. The demonic abilities of the possessed individuals manage to add to the brutality, much like the stand-out practical effects here on the possessed individuals. The misshapen faces and deformed features provide a truly uncomfortable look and offer a rather impressive addition to the atmosphere of the film. These elements, overall give plenty to like and enjoy about it. Overall, there isn't much really wrong with the film. One of its only issues is the overlong running time, as this does not need for running near two hours in length. Several things account for this, from the flashbacks to explain their past encounter with the demon world or changing the arc of events that have already happened to promote an admittedly-fine twist. Moreover, the finale is way too long, typified by useless speechifying and grandiose brags from the villain which seem out of the ordinary and just there to pad the running time. Finally, although the concept of the twist works how it comes about in the story makes no sense. It's just dropped in the middle of the film to add a new villain but nothing else about it has any context. It's a minor nitpick though and doesn't detract much from the film overall.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

As much as I like the predecessor, May the Devil Take You 2 doesn't live up to the expectations brought by the teasers or the Evil Dead vibes, which executed very well in the first film. The premise is too far-fetched, and the new groups here just too many, making it's reasonable to say that most of them are solely for the sake of body counts.

The exploitation nature of the movie, with good execution, can be enjoyable if we have relatively good characters or satisfying gory/horror scenes. However, this film (due to the body counts token) can only make one-dimensional characters with many weird dialogues or instances. The female lead Ms. Islan also can't justify others' acting due to the pressure of femme fatale scripts that wants her to be as badass as possible. The horror scenes are quite decent, but it takes away many chances to build suspense to focus on campy and brief jumpscares with white-faced ghosts.

With almost two hours (!!!) to build a movie on such a thin premise and somewhat inadequate central components, the movie can't hold my attention to join the roller coaster. The movie has its good scenes in the climax when not too many characters appear and the aim is precise. It's not that worth of wait, but still interesting enough for you who wants to know more profound about the devil's nature.

Although I am relatively disappointed by this movie, I still hope that there is a third installment just for the sake of living horror exploitation alive in Indonesia horror scenes. We are short of this kind of subgenre, and we need that to ensure that the whole horror word in Indonesia only can be defined as jumpscares.