In the ritual he was doing (which was interrupted by the father) he was really hurting the Devil...
So the theory of him working together with the Devil is not correct, right?
But why was he taking pictures at the end?
Can someone please help?
I've said this a few times, but the most likely explanation is that the Shaman was a good guy who tried to kill the demon, but he was possessed when the protagonist interrupted the ritual.
He says earlier that if the ritual is interrupted, the spell can back-fire on him and as soon as this happens, he even has a moment where he adopts that stoic, mild glare that the Japanese guy always has. It's also probably why the Japanese guy spends the next segment of the film acting more human, as the demon likely (temporarily) jumped ship.
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No,
The shaman is helping the demon.
When he was performing the ritual, it was actually hurting the daughter so that the demon could be more "accessible" to the daughter and take her over.
Shaman acted as a demon's underling to help the demon to be more "accessible" to human.
Why did he take the picture?
Remember the Japanese had the pictures of the victim(s) on the wall?
Shaman - japanese demon - picture, related.
And remember the young female who was throwing rocks in the beginning?
Shes suppose to be an "angel"
Shaman started to puke when he saw the angel and ran away in fear.
She warns the main guy about the Chicken crying 3 times, which relates to the Christ telling Saint Peter,
FROM WIKI:
"This very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times." But Peter declared, "Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you." And all the other disciples said the same
So in conclusion
Shaman helped Demon to be closer to human
Angel( Young female ) tried to help them
BUT
Why was the Japanese guy in agonizing pain throughout that ritual?
The Shaman only puked and was driven away AFTER he was (possibly) possessed during the ritual. He also took the pictures near the end, after his spell backfired.
The daughter was in pain, but most exorcisms (at least in movies) seem to cause a lot of agony.
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Why was the Japanese guy in agonizing pain throughout that ritual?
- Remember during the Japanese Demon was having the ritual, he was scared and was very aware of that young female's existence near him? It the interference
The Shaman only puked and was driven away AFTER he was (possibly) possessed during the ritual. He also took the pictures near the end, after his spell backfired.
- Wrong. Shaman puked when he was approached by the young female ( again, the angel ). When the shaman refused to take her warning, then it was when he began to puke.
The pictures that he took, wasn't after his spell failed. His spell/plan actually worked. The main guy's family members were killed due to his curse.
The daughter was in pain, but most exorcisms (at least in movies) seem to cause a lot of agony.
- Think of it as voodoo doll basically the same thing.
"Shaman acted as a demon's underling"
I agree with this theory. People are saying the shaman was a demon, but I doubt that. When he was driving away after being scared off by the young woman ghost the bugs started pelting his windshield and made him turn back. I believe this was the old Japanese man making him turn back to complete the tasks he was supposed to preform. He's a servant of the Japanese man (the devil), and collects pictures of the victims for him. That's where the box of photos he was carrying at the end came from: they were the old man's from the beginning. He never burned them like he said, he merely had the shaman come and take them. However, I'm still not sure if the ritual he was preforming actually had any effect or if he's simply a charlatan preforming a phoney ritual to throw the victims off as well as make money for the shaman. I believe that's part of the deal between him and the Japanese man: He preforms a phoney ritual, allowing him to extract money from vulnerable people, and in return he collects the photos and gives the victims misleading advice (like telling them not to believe the young woman ghost).
considering what the pale angel girl said... this theory does make sense.
shareHe was ALWAYS evil. The theory of half-way possession is nonsense. There is no way he could accumulate so many photos of victims families in a lock box over such a short period of time. He had hundreds of photographs. At no time, at any point in the film was he helping the family.
shareI think the shaman was working for the demon all along also. In the beginning when the policeman first talked to the girl in white at the burnt down house, she had told him how the woman who hung herself had gone crazy and the family had got a shaman to helped them.
But then they only call the shaman after the evil spirit is already in them...so why would the demon need the shaman? Hmmm... This movie is confusing.
The undergarment that both shaman and the japanese man wear kind of give it away??
Also, the white mask found at japanese man's ritual and similar white mask found in Shaman's car.
What about the other rituals that were performed by shaman that resulted in one family's bodies found in the well as well as one woman went crazy and hung herself?
the japanese guy could've put the photos in the lockbox, and the shaman grabbed them after he became possessed (and the japanese guy briefly unpossessed)
shareafter reading all this I dislike this movie even more...
shareAll of you are wrong - some of the stretching in this post is ridiculous.
The SHaman is UNKNOWN.
The ambiguous ending comes after all points leading to him being a mid-level shaman that ran across bigger fish.
I give this movie 6/10 - it's intriguing, but problematic
I totally agree with you.
the shaman is neither good or bad. he was just another confused person. he did perform good at first by almost killing the devil, but then he was confused and mistakenly thought the white lady was evil. he got himself caught in a larger web that he was too inexperienced for, and ended up causing more confusion.
that would not explain why he snapped the photographs of the family members at the end
shareHe was good and then he gets possessed and then he gets purged and becomes good and then the demon forces him to help kill the family.
shareShaman was another Devil.
Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down and a Wagging Finger of Shame