Best and most scary scene in the movie
SPOILERS ***** SPOILERS ***** SPOILERS
True, this movie had some convoluted subplots, the worst of which was actually meant to be the driving force of the mystery, a sort of red herring. That was the bishop or cardinal played by Peter Weller who was actually an ambitious and therefore corrupted church official who aspired to the position of pope so that he could ostensibly redirect the Roman Catholic Church into a more sinister direction. That was so much drivel.
What I liked most about the movie was Heath Ledger's Carolingian priest character's confrontation with demons. Now there is little historical record for demons actually manifesting in broad daylight as perfectly normal, young street urchins. Usually the existence of demons, from a religious historical viewpoint, has been that of a shadowy but malignant and malicious intent of possessing (usually meant controlling) hapless human beings into degenerating into a life of corruption. Historical anecdotes of demons showing up as faux humans in daylight and perfectly visible, not shadowy, are very rare.
The Heath Ledger priest character first sees the two, little kids sitting just outside his apartment flat door. Ledger's friend is instantly deceived into seeing the two demons as they intended, two, pitiful, apparently homeless, wretched street urchins. Demons always seek to deceive under many guises, from false angels, spirit guides, human ghosts of strangers, deceased relatives, or sick children. Even the Virgin Mary has been impersonated by demons. Anyway, the priest is much more trained, experienced, and intuitive than his beautiful friend, a former possessed victim herself. He instinctively knows there is something wrong with the two homeless kids who are passively and quietly sitting on a curb just yards away from the front door. Later on we're certain that the priest must have known what the two little kids really were. The first time he spots the two little, wretched, disheveled orphan street urchins, he never turns his back to them, treating them as potentially dangerous, which they later prove. It turns out naturally, that everyone's bad vibes are correct. It's too obvious. The two urchins are demonic sentinel observers, who took the form of harmless little street kids because, one, the demons felt the need to maintain a 24/7 watch on the priest. Two, as little, harmless kids, they wouldn't attract any undue attention from say, the local police. Being demons, they of course had no fear of potential human muggers or pedophiles. But when the time came to liquidate the priest, of course it was nighttime, that's when the two kiddie demons revealed themselves in a monstrous form. Of course demons have no physical form, but it always helps to assume a monstrous apparition form to terrify a victim for intended destruction.