Two Mormon missionaries get more than what they bargained for upon visiting a strange recluse in this new horror-thriller from Scott Beck and Bryan Woods.
Movies that pit characters in spiritual conflict with their faith have been around for decades now, the most famous ones being Ingmar Bergman’s Faith trilogy of Through A Glass Darkly, The Silence and Winter Light, and a recent favorite being Paul Schrader’s 2017 film First Reformed, and while those are all well and good, do they feature a psychotic heretic manipulating two innocents into a labyrinth of Saw-esque games that challenge their faith? That’s the concept of the latest A24 release Heretic, and the results amount to a cerebral and suspenseful piece of psychological horror driven by a commanding, even terrifying performance from Hugh Grant.
To elaborate further, Heretic follows Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, respectively), two Mormon missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints going door-to-door to answer people’s calls for interest about converting to Mormonism and purchasing the Book of Mormon. The two friends arrive at the cottage of mysterious recluse Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant), who invites them into his home for a conversation with himself and his wife, promising she is just in the kitchen finishing up a blueberry pie.
Very quickly, however, Sisters Barnes and Paxton realize that not only is there no physical blueberry pie (only a candle scented like one), but also that Mr. Reed has no wife to speak of. This plunges their ideological discussion into a twisted game of cat-and-mouse that challenges their respective beliefs in their own religion and puts them in frightening situations which endanger their lives, leaving the two allies resorting to quick wits in hopes of retorting their captor’s disbelief of all higher powers, and escaping his ominous abode.
After his delightful turn for the villainous in Paddington 2, Hugh Grant stays on the antagonistic side of characters in Heretic, relishing the chance that writer-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods have given him to thrive in as Mr. Reed. The endearing charm that made him a famous leading man thirty years ago in Four Weddings and a Funeral serves him well in his initial meeting with the girls at his front door, but he uses impeccable restraint to slowly transition his inherent sweetness into menace the longer his arguments go along, only to snap back into a jolly demeanor when reinforcing his points for comedic effect. One such instance comes in his stating that all religions are all copies of each other by backing it up with, of all things, the dubious origin of the Monopoly board game.
But his adversaries in these theological debates hold their own against him, even as ominous doubt and the unsettling atmosphere of their prison gets to them. Sophie Thatcher counters Mr. Reed’s bleak logic with a ferocious confidence and fervor that backs him into a corner when Sister Barnes demonstrates her unflinching devotion to her Mormon faith, while Chloe East’s constant politeness even when she tries to insist on walking through the door their detainer has marked, ‘Disbelief’ only communicates an involving inner helplessness and fragility well after hers and Barnes’ resolves have both gradually broken via haunting naturalism.
Beck and Woods have been making movies together since 2003, and their knack for creativity has manifested itself in different ways since they broke out with the story and screenplay for the original A Quiet Place film. In the case of Heretic, the script here is very well written in how thoughtfully it distills interesting analytical and scriptural concepts down to the essentials for casual audiences to understand.
Some examples include the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi’s question of, “Am I a man dreaming of a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?” as well as the similarities of each religion visually represented with “The Air That I Breathe” by Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood and its more famous covers from decades later. The two main protagonists also have a well developed dynamic; Sister Barnes is supremely dedicated to her Mormon faith and wants to serve her headmaster well, while Sister Paxton has a youthful naivete, shown in an early confession that sees her mispronounce the word ‘pornography’.
As captivating and suspenseful as Heretic can get, it is predominantly driven by dialogue which admittedly isn’t a bad thing, but a lot of Mr. Reed’s tangents are chock full of motifs that the viewer has to keep an awareness of as the film goes along, meaning casual audiences with the scarcest knowledge of religious or philosophical thinking will have a lot of theories to wrap their heads around, and their density may be difficult to comprehend within the film’s near two-hour runtime. It’s also worth noting that there aren’t as many setpieces to this film than the trailer suggests, and the third act does rely on one too many convenient twists to reach its conclusion.
But those only add to the power of Beck and Woods’ latest film to terrify and provoke thought, and Heretic will keep audiences compelled by Hugh Grant’s monstrous intelligence and screen presence, gripped by the long and slow camerawork that ensnares Sisters Barnes and Paxton further into his control the more it circles around them, and left pondering about what the film’s final images mean both in the context of the narrative, and to their own personal belief systems. It’s a horror film that asks for answers to the big questions that surround what personally drives our decisions, and that’s why Heretic is worth seeing even after the spooky season’s end.