SPOILER DISCUSSION

1.I do wonder how Joseph’s fate would have gone if he had told Sophia that he had to drown and resuscitate her to restart the ritual. He dies because her Guardian Angel manifests in protection to his action and guts him, but would it have done the same thing if Sophia knew what was going to happen to her? Or was Joseph’s explanation of the Angel’s motivation incorrect and it acted in revenge as Sophia wanted it to? Granted, with how reluctant and irritated Sophia gets as the ritual progresses, it’s totally possible she would have refused and tried to leave the area, but I think the issue not to tell her speaks directly to the idea of alienation the movie plays with. His lack of faith in telling her stems from his mistrust of her not being willing to follow through (or so I think). This stems from her constant belligerence to what he suggests and her demand for immediate results, which is a result of both frustration and her lack of faith in Joseph’s knowledge and the ritual proper. If both of them had just opened themselves up more to one another, maybe Joseph would not have died, but in the same way their refusal to open up to the rest of the world has cast them aside to the world of the occult, their refusal to be as open with each other forces their path to drastically alter. Alienated and together at the same time, they can’t see eye to eye until it’s too late.

2. The way the salt circle around the house appears, a white line broken in places to a black pavement, looks exactly like a latter shot of the road that Sophia drives/walks through with a white dividing line. To me it suggests that the division between the world of the ritual and the real world is meant to keep the “two lanes” safe from one another in the same way the lines on the road keep drivers from hitting each other. In another sense, the extension of the line as Sophia leaves shows that she’s still trapped within the barrier of sorts and can’t escape. I only wish there was a dissolve of sorts to reinforce this connection.

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3. The scene where Sophia gets back to the house and talks to the demonic portrayal of her son on the other side is chilling and plays off incredibly well given the earlier revelation that spirits and the like are just illusions and traps. The way she emphatically talks to her “son” and apologizes to him tricks us into believing that she’s either lost “it” or that perhaps this really is a spirit of her son. It’s a neat trick that plays on our identification with the protagonist. When the spirit casually reveals in the voice of a young boy that it’s just a demon using her son’s voice to mess with her, it’s chilling because it’s something we should know but forgot. Her smiling response that she knows is the cherry on top because it foreshadows her eventual ability to forgive even the dark she sees in her. Effective scare and neat thematic moment , this is one of my favorite scenes in the movie.

4.The dog barking is constantly referenced by both characters as a sign they’ve entered the supernatural realm. It’s only when Sophia is dragged down the specters that we finally get to see the creature, but we only get a shot of it from the neck down. It’s almost like it’s the ruler of the domain and we’re not supposed to see its head, so the image ends up feeling a lot more ominous because it depicts something so unnaturally.

Given all the information we have along with the context of the movie, I would like to think the dog is the Greek Goddess Hecate. She’s supposed to be the Goddess of boundaries and is associated with both witchcraft and the underworld which both fit the MO. On top of this, she’s often presented as a dog or in the presence of dogs and her appearance is marked by dogs barking. Put together, it feels fitting that Sophia’s descent is marked by such a deity. It’s also a neat tie in to the amount of Egyptian lore scattered throughout the movie.

5. While I’m in the camp that the guardian Angel’s actual reveal feels odd, I appreciate the enthusiasm and gusto it’s presented with. Yes, it looks weird and jarring, but if the goal was to actually present the Angel on screen, I don’t know what better way would’ve worked. Given the gravity of the situation and the idea that it’s true faith and redemption that saves Sophia, a grandiose reveal such as this is warranted.

Personally, I would’ve liked a divine light and an outline of the Angel so that the idea would be present without being so in your face. I think it would have been more immediately acceptable, but I can’t hate the decision to be bold. It’d be better if movies took more chances on trying new things, so I’d rather not “punish” directors for attempting to push the mold.