ACHTUNG: SPOILERS!
All in all the community of Little Tall Island was a bunch of hypocritical cowards who hid behind a pretext, i.e. in a crisis the community has to stick together and the commonwealth is more important than the fate of one person. A fine excuse, because essentially they all just feared for their own lives and didn't believe their community would be morally strong enough to withstand Linoge. How could they, they were - as Linoge stated - thieves, murderers, pedophiles, gay-bashers, adulterers and kept their dirty little secrets from each other. They were NOT a community. And that's why the demon was able to defeat them, he knew they didn't have the morals or faith it would have taken to resist him. Personally I doubt that Linoge could have made them commit collective suicide or kill the children. Right before he heads off with Ralph, the mother shouts out at him and accuses him of having tricked them. Linoge then answers wryly that maybe they (the community) have tricked themselves. So I think he had only so much power over them as they were willing to give him. But even if he had killed them all: in the last scene, where Anderson catches a glimpse of his now teenage son and realizes he has become a demon, too...well, I'd rather have my kid dead than have him lose his soul and become a monster. In one of the previous posts someone asks, "Why didn't Linoge just gather them up and confront them right in the beginning?". Well if he had asked them for one of their children right after killing the old lady, nobody would have even considered doing so. It was necessary to instill fear and panic into their hearts and keep them in ignorance as long as possible in order to wear them down. Only then would they be willing to sacrifice one of their children for their own sake.
All in all the community of Little Tall Island was a bunch of hypocritical cowards who hid behind a pretext, i.e. in a crisis the community has to stick together and the commonwealth is more important than the fate of one person. A fine excuse, because essentially they all just feared for their own lives and didn't believe their community would be morally strong enough to withstand Linoge. How could they, they were - as Linoge stated - thieves, murderers, pedophiles, gay-bashers, adulterers and kept their dirty little secrets from each other. They were NOT a community. And that's why the demon was able to defeat them, he knew they didn't have the morals or faith it would have taken to resist him. Personally I doubt that Linoge could have made them commit collective suicide or kill the children. Right before he heads off with Ralph, the mother shouts out at him and accuses him of having tricked them. Linoge then answers wryly that maybe they (the community) have tricked themselves. So I think he had only so much power over them as they were willing to give him. But even if he had killed them all: in the last scene, where Anderson catches a glimpse of his now teenage son and realizes he has become a demon, too...well, I'd rather have my kid dead than have him lose his soul and become a monster. In one of the previous posts someone asks, "Why didn't Linoge just gather them up and confront them right in the beginning?". Well if he had asked them for one of their children right after killing the old lady, nobody would have even considered doing so. It was necessary to instill fear and panic into their hearts and keep them in ignorance as long as possible in order to wear them down. Only then would they be willing to sacrifice one of their children for their own sake.