JerseyWiseguy t1_ito7btm wrote on October 25, 2022 at 2:10 AM

You didn't understand the story. It was always about Damien Karras. He was losing his humility and faith in God and believing more and more in science. It was him the demon was seeking out, from the very beginning. There are clues to that in the movie. He's disgusted by the beggar instead of humbly giving him alms, he believes in mental illness instead of demonic possession, etc. And that's why the movie ends with the Demon taking him.

Rambler43 t1_itq8dpw wrote on October 25, 2022 at 2:44 PM

>It was him the demon was seeking out, from the very beginning.

I have to disagree with this.

Father Karras was having a crisis of faith throughout the movie and was moving toward secularism. It took witnessing true demonic evil to restore his faith. If the devil is real, then so is God was his reasoning. The devil didn't destroy his faith. It re-affirmed it.

Kerras's final selfless act (taking the demon on himself) was spontaneous in nature, however. He had to invite the demon in before it could take him, just as it did with Regan when she was playing with the Ouija board early on. It would not have taken him otherwise.

If Pazuzu was pursuing anyone, it was Father Merrin since he first encountered the evil while on an archeological dig in Iraq at the beginning of the movie. He had also dealt with it before at another exorcism in the past.