Here’s May The Devil Takes You’s demonic curse and the movie’s ending explained. Indonesian filmmaker Timo Tjahjanto has gained a cult following in recent years thanks to movies like 2018’s ferocious The Night Comes For Us, but May The Devil Take You saw the director switch gears. This is very much a tribute to the Evil Dead franchise and director Sam Raimi’s style in general. From its plot down to its use of creative camerawork and energetic editing, it feels like something of an unofficial spinoff.

May The Devil Take You stars Chelsea Islan (Headshot) as Alfie, who became estranged from her wealthy father Lesmana following the mysterious death of her mother. Her father grows ill years later from a bizarre – and gross – illness, so Alfie head back to their old, abandoned villa to find answers about what’s happening. Lesmana’s cold new wife and her step-siblings later arrive to pillage the place since Lesmana has also gone bankrupt, but when they investigate the basement, they discover he made a demonic pact for his good fortune – and the bill is their souls.

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May The Devil Take You features some genuinely creepy and unnerving sequences, though it often feels a little too slavish to the Evil Dead blueprint. The movie opens with Lesmana making his deal with a Dark Priestess – AKA a “concubine” of Satan – and it’s revealed his initial wealth came because he sacrificed his first wife’s life. Years later the Priestess demands further payment with Alfie’s soul, but Lesmana betrays her instead of giving up his daughter. She rips off a chunk of his hair out and swallows it, promising that not only will his fortune come to an end, but his family will pay the price.

Lesmana kills her and buries the body in the basement, and seals the door with runes to keep her spirit trapped Sadly for him, the family snooping around the villa leads them to unseal the door, freeing her spirit and she quickly dispatches him in his hospital bed. May The Devil Take You then switches to full Deadite mode as Alfie’s evil stepmother is possessed, and then her step-sibling Maya gives herself over to Satan.

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May The Devil Take You’s finale takes place in the basement, with Maya torturing Alfie with a voodoo doll created by the priestess. There’s a doll for the whole family, and Alfie manages to grab Maya’s and throw it into a fire, causing her to go up in flames. Alfie finally breaks the curse by digging up the priestess’ body and – in what feels like an homage to Drag Me To Hell – pulls Lesmana’s hair out of the body and throws it into the fire too. She and her youngest stepsibling Nara – the only survivors – exit the villa together. Since they both return for May the Devil Take You Too, that suggests their demonic trauma is far from finished.

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Padraig Cotter
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It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

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He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

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