I rewatched this classic over the weekend. And I actually felt really sad for Peter this go around.
Before all the evil spooky shyt goes down, Annie is at that support group going on about how her brother had schizophrenia. Ignore all the possession and demonic shyt that happens, if this were just a regular scenario, Annie herself would be schizo right? From someone with a normal perspective, this bytch would be completely bonkers and would need to be heavily medicated. Out here telling her family to hold hands around the table to talk to her dead daughter. Her facial expressions were super wild too. I feel like it adds to my theory because she looked mentally clocked out.
Steve would have been alright. The dude was calm and he had common sense throughout the movie. His focus was on Peter's health and that alone.
But imagine being a child Peter's age and your parent is looney like that. You don't have the emotional intelligence to deal with something so extreme. I'm not saying being an adult and having your child deal with something like that is easy, but got damn it's got to be so rough when the person who feeds you and suppose to guide you can't keep it together.
In the end, when Annie is banging her head against the attic door, Peter is in the attic crying "Mommy, mommy please stop".
My main take from this rewatch