A
bankrupt man resorts to having a mystic do an incantation to reverse his
fortunes. The ritual is successful, but
as time goes by the man becomes ill and falls into a coma. After visiting him in the hospital, his
family returns to his old, rundown house.
While cleaning up, they disturb a restless spirit which tries to possess
and kill the family.
The
specter sort of looks like something out of a Japanese horror movie. Pale face, messy hair, the whole nine
yards. There are even scenes of characters
being forced to eat hair and/or hair attacking people, which are big in those
kinds of films. Despite that, the ghost
has a funky, unique vibe to it that helps separate it from other similar
spirits we’ve seen.
Writer/director
Timo (The Night Comes for Us) Tjahjanto gives us a lot of Sam Raimi-inspired shots
of possessed people floating, puking blood, and attacking loved ones in gory
ways. There’s even a book of creepy drawings
just like the Necronomicon. In fact, the
beginning has a Drag Me to Hell feel to it, which makes me think May the Devil
Take You would’ve never existed had it not been for Raimi's influence.
It’s
sort of more fun picking out where Tjahjanto steals his inspirations from than
anything. I mean you’ve got to do
something to help you get past the overlong running time and deliberate pacing. The family drama stuff isn’t all that
involving either and seeing how the whole thing hinges on their dislike and
distrust of each other makes the various backstabbing (and frontstabbing) lose
a little of its bite.
There
are just enough gruesome moments here to qualify it as a near miss. The face-ripping gag alone is enough to earn
the film an extra ½ *. I just wish that
some of the voodoo doll-centric kills weren’t so cartoony.
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