Christine's lack of indoctrination
Why didn't the Satanists indoctrinate Christine to go along with the plan to have her bear Satan's child?- It could be one of those prophecies where her not knowing about her destiny is important; she must be a true child of Earth to bear the child of Satan, or something along those lines.
- This is further reinforced when taking into account that the main objection several religious figures offer to the idea of killing Christine is that she is innocent, even just after her birth when they have no way of knowing how she will grow up.
- Which begs the question of why the religious figures in question didn't contemplate having her sterilized instead. Yes, it's doubly dubious in a Christianity is Catholic setting, but at least she'd be alive.
- The priests didn't find her until the last minute; wasn't exactly a lot of time for delicate surgery. As for the Satanists not raising Christine as one of their own, there's always the risk that the indoctrination wouldn't take and she'd still rebel against them, only now she'd know what they have planned, and so would have the time and foreknowledge to fuck things up.
Hole to Hell
What do the authorities do about the enormous gaping pit of hell that is in the middle of the Church after Jericho banishes Satan?- Well if the hole goes all the way to China, they can dump all their rubbish into it.
- Usually in movies, portals to Hell just seal themselves shut after a few hours, if not minutes.
- Well if the hole goes all the way to China, they can dump all their rubbish into it.
Where did all the evil minions go?
Before Caine thwarted Satan with his Heroic Sacrifice, the cultists were coming out of the woodwork to stomp Caine. Right after? Gone as though they never were. Many hundreds, verging on thousands, poof! Did they simply melt into the woodwork, or did the vengeful Satan drag them down with him for failing? Given what the movie implied about NYC's police, the dragging would be a real drag on NYPD manpower stats.- The film never says that these people are all Satanic cultists. It's more likely that the Devil can simply influence those who are evil (as with the pedophile policeman). Presumably they all went back to being muggers, drug dealers, and Wall Street bankers the next day. "Gee, that was a weird dream I had last night about serving the Devil..."
- It should also be noted that most of the time when the Satanists are gathered in large numbers, either the Devil had time to gather more 'minions' when he was sure Jericho would be in a specific place, or they were attending a 'religious' event. In the first case, Satan would have had an hour's notice to gather people with suitable darkness in their hearts to attack Jericho, and in the second they would have had a day or so to gather true Satanists from all over the country in preparation for the final ritual.
What is Mabel?
How does Mabel have superhuman strength and the ability to turn her fingernails into talons? Is she just a Satanist with (unexplained) demonic powers? Or is she a demon herself? If she's a demon, then surely she wouldn't be able to be killed as easily as she was. And if the former is true, how did she get those abilities? By just worshiping the Devil?- She may have been entrusted with additional powers in her role as Christine's guardian, but they never expected anyone to actually have the strength or will to go up against her with the intent and will to kill like Jericho demonstrated.
Seduction is a free action.
Once the Devil has possessed Jericho, why doesn't he just rape her on the spot given that he's running out of time to midnight? Apart from the Audience-Alienating Premise of course.- It could be that Jericho was able to influence Satan just enough to stop him diving straight into his main goal, but it took Christine's encouragement to make Jericho fully throw him off and kill himself.
Needing Jer to TELL him the address.
So the Devil is an eldritch being with unearthly powers beyond anything mankind has ever seen and so forth, yet he doesn't seem to have any sort of telepathy? He can't just look into Jer's mind and see where the girl was being hidden?- I figure there are either some set of rules he needs to follow in order for the whole thing to work, or perhaps possessing a host is a sort of Power Limiter, he still has huge amounts of power, but there does seem to be limitations to what he can do, it seems he can only really control someone if they agree to his deals.
- The priest states that Christine would be safe at the church, that Satan couldn't find her (also implying he couldn't enter the church, which is later proven wrong), so it might be that this 'protection' extends to masking the church's location in Jericho's mind.
