I thought it was god awful

The structure was not as good as it could've been. Maybe it's me, but it was clear to me from the beginning which side was right and that the story will constantly push the viewers towards it. Good writing would not assume one of points of view as "correct" from the start and will make it as ambiguous and as unclear as possible, making viewers guess and think about the situation from their own perspective. Case in point, one of my favorite shows The Leftovers does that perfectly. You are never getting a specific answer, it all stays mysterious and unexplained.

But this movie adopts one point of view and shows everything through it, it was obvious what will happen eventually. It was not bad, I was entertained. And I will forget I've seen it.

What is never really explained is why did they need to get every single one of their group killed...?

What would be the difference? The world kept falling apart every time the family decided to not get one of their members killed...

As I understand this was in order to convince the family and also to make a sacrifice. The whole Christian religion is based on the element of a sacrifice without much logic, so it's suitable.

@D-magic said:

As I understand this was in order to convince the family and also to make a sacrifice. The whole Christian religion is based on the element of a sacrifice without much logic, so it's suitable.

But it never made any kind of sense.

Why having to kill themselves? It's so stupid.

@HarrySkywalker said:

But it never made any kind of sense.

Why having to kill themselves? It's so stupid.

I agree, but according to Christian religion, Christ sacrificed himself to redeem and save humanity from their sins, or something like that. There is no point to look for a sense in religious believes, the movie only reflects this theme.

@D-magic said:

@HarrySkywalker said:

But it never made any kind of sense.

Why having to kill themselves? It's so stupid.

I agree, but according to Christian religion, Christ sacrificed himself to redeem and save humanity from their sins, or something like that. There is no point to look for a sense in religious believes, the movie only reflects this theme.

But the thing is they never explained the reasons.

They just start killing themsevles because... oh well, reasons.

Just because the movie makes a dumbass reference to the four horseman of the apocalypse, there's no reason for us to be similarly stupid and think this movie is something to do with faith.

If anything it's about the morality of whether murder is justified when it saves more lives. The problem here, and it is both a moral and a philosophical problem, is that BOTH the murder, or sacrifice, and the consequences of non compliance, are themselves lacking in moral good, or to put it in plain English, are evil. Just as in Star Trek V where Kirk asks why God would need a spaceship, we are left to wonder why God would want to do any of this. And it doesn't matter if one is an atheist or religious; the same objection emerges. So it doesn't work as a commentary on religious beliefs.

Typically, these sorts of movies take the well-worn path of terrorists or criminals obliging an otherwise innocent person to do something heinous otherwise something much more horrendous will happen, like a nuclear bomb going off or something. We're all familiar with the variants. This being an M. Night Shyamalan movie of course it winds up somewhere else: the religious nutters turning out to be right. From a storytelling perspective the problem is that it just isn't a surprise, or even very interesting.

The mechanics of the film: acting, sets and so forth, are good.