I hated the end the first time I saw it. Mainly because the kid who plays the preacher was NOT convincingly made up to look like an adult. He had wrinkles and shit, but his voice still sounded like a child's.
When I re-watched it I found this much less irritating. Not sure why. That ending really speaks volumes about the entire "moral" of the story, which is that our society has been forged by the equally corrupt worlds of religion and industry, and drives the point home that there is no such thing as man overcoming sin, and that God simply has no place in the day to day dealings of human beings.
Quite nihilistic. Quite dark. And of course our fucked up demon of a protagonist is unphased and ultimately triumphant, which is pretty much how things work in the real world.
