The Seventh Day Explained- Monsters Hiding In Plain Sight And What Is Father Peter?

The Seventh Day provides plenty of quality scares and clues that things are not what they seem, and the true face of Evil is more familiar than we want it to be.

On the seventh day, God rested. In the new film The Seventh Day from 2021, Satan uses the Lord’s day of rest to sneak in. The film which is better than you think it will be, is a clever spin on demonic possession and the Devil. There has been a bounty of good possession movies lately. Films like The Dark and the Wicked and Shudder’s Belzebuth both do something new with the familiar sub-genre. Justin Lange’s story about the seemingly futile fight between good and evil stars Guy Pierce as Father Peter an aging exorcist. He shuffles his way through one terrifying situation after the next smugly spouting platitudes and hints to anyone who would listen. He is a casual priest who roams the country doing the church’s bidding and training other young apprentices.

His latest apprentice is Father Daniel, played by Vadhir Derbez. His steel-jawed innocence could have stepped off the pages of the latest Superman comic. Daniel exudes naivete and goodness just as Pierces’s Father Peter flaunts fevered slouchy indifference before his real purpose is seen in the final act. We first meet Father Peter in 1995 when he conducted his first exorcism with his mentor Father Louis. Unfortunately, it does not go well, and Father Louis is stabbed in the throat and dies. Nicholas, the boy they were to exorcise, catches fire and dies.

Flash forward to the present day, and Father Peter is still working as an exorcist. Now he is mentoring young priests to do the same. Father Daniel is the latest, and the two men find themselves embroiled in a nasty fight for quite possibly the world’s fate. Here is everything you need to know about that crazy twist ending and the clues you should have picked up on along the way.

The ending of The Seventh Day

In the final extended act of the film, Father Daniel becomes involved in an exorcism for Charlie, a young boy who hacked his family to death. Father Peter tells him the boy is possessed, and they must save him from a lifetime in prison. After Charlie kills almost everyone in the jail, including guards and interrogators, the two priests sedate him and drive him away so they can exorcise him. In a lucid moment, Charlie told Daniel that the man who had been coming to him and whispering terrible things in his ears was Father Peter. At first, Daniel chalks that up to confusion but as the exorcism starts, he finally puts the pieces together. He realizes that the demon has been in Father Peter from the beginning.

When Daniel finally realizes what has been going on, he stabs Father Peter and releases the demon. With nowhere to go, the demon tries to invade him. The cosmic struggle plays out in front of us, with Daniel appearing to lose the battle. He screams and breaks a mirror and defeats the demon. The demon is heard no more, and Daniel leaves the house with Charlie. Daniel performs another exorcism successfully on him, and the boy is freed. Back at the Archbishops, Daniel is told the Vatican knows about everything and has a plan. Daniel tells him he isn’t waiting and drives off with files on every apprentice Father Peter trained. The assumption is he will exorcise them one by one.

How does the demon work?

As we learn at the end of The Seventh Day, Father Peter has been mentoring and infecting young priests since 1995. His plan is pretty genius. Not only is he able to operate right out in the open without suspicion, but he is also able to send countless young apprentices into the lion’s den. There they will most likely scoop up the demon they were sent to exorcise.

Father Peter can project the demon out into other young minds because they are vulnerable. His whole plan is to infect priests through exorcism, which propagates even more possession. The resulting Evil is like a hive-minded entity that is more knowledgeable and more powerful the bigger it gets. The demon can also jump in and out of the possessed body. This is why Father Peter can hold the cross and the bible. Father Peter has also developed his warped version of the rites, which is why they don’t save anybody, and he can perform them without hurting himself. When he needs to appear holy, Legion jumps into someone else, allowing his host to do what he needs to know. It will most likely result in more infected priests. It is a reasonably symbiotic relationship.

Father Peter uses the exorcisms as a way for his unsuspecting victims to become open to possession. By having them kill the children they are there to exorcise they become victims. Each time a child is killed during the process, it completes the cycle for the young priest, and they become infected themselves.

What are the clues?

There are clues throughout the film that Father Peter is not an instrument for good. Father Peter says it in the beginning when he tells Father Daniel Evil hides in the places you least suspect. He is literally telling Daniel everything he needs to know. He sends Father Daniel in alone to speak with Charlie to not be recognized and given away as the person who has been tormenting him. Next, when Charlie’s friends are playing video games in the skating rink, the boys tell Daniel to “fuck off” they are busy. Just seconds later, when Father Peter comes in, their game turns off mysteriously. Father Peter did it. He is pretty powerful and needed Father Daniel to open himself up to what he would find in the Ouija Board.

“We are everywhere” I am Legion, and I want in. This is the point of Charlie’s early speech to Daniel when he first visits him in prison. The devil is so confident in his plan that he is telling Daniel everything. There is something brilliant about making our mentoring good guy Father Peter, the monster. There is something even smarter about making systemic Evil ordinary. That is what The Seventh Day does. It shows that when something is rotten, you may not know until it is too late. Like the coverup of countless child abuse and molestation charges by the Catholic Church, it’s almost impossible to root out once evil gets inside. It continues to grow and infect everything around it. What maybe once was good is now black as night bad.

The last act of The Seventh Day is a long, harrowing journey to the Darkside. It is as twisty as it is fun. It also sets up the exciting possibility for a sequel or two. I would watch Father Daniel duel with the Devil anyway. The Seventh Day is out on Netflix right now. Find all our explained posts here. If you can’t find one you are looking for, comment in the section below. Or hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, or Discord with a suggestion.