Heretic

'Heretic' has its cast to thank for me fully enjoying it. The plot is most certainly suitably entertaining, don't get me wrong, but by the end it was almost wearing a tiny bit thin - and perhaps would have if not for those on the screen. All in all, though, it's a fun psychological horror. Hugh Grant is tremendous in the main role, he is an actor that has the chops to do this genre - I've said it before, but I found his character in the 'Bridget Jones' flicks to be creepy so that was all the proof I needed for the aforementioned to be true. Grant is certainly creepy here. Chloe East and Sophie Thatcher are also good value, particularly the latter; this and 2025's 'Companion' make for impressive work of her's - keen to see more. Along with the noted thinning, the end is a bit iffy but I'm happy to overlook any potential issues I may hold with it tbh.

Written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (65, Haunt, writers of A Quiet Place), Heretic is a so-called psychological horror that is disappointing on all fronts. After only seeing the trailer once months ago, I initially thought that Heretic was a film about a serial killer (Hugh Grant) who used his crazy mouse trap-contraption house to lure in religious, door-to-door service people and kill them. While that is partially the case, Heretic follows two missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher, The Book of Boba Fett) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East, The Wolf of Snow Hollow). The two women go to the house of Mr. Reed (Grant) who has expressed interest in hearing more about their religion. As Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton make their way inside, they soon find themselves trapped in Mr. Reed’s bizarrely intricate home featuring electricity on a timer, a front door that supposedly won’t open again until morning, and that the house being made of metal blocks cell phone signals. Reed, a theology major with vast knowledge of all religions, claims to have found the one true religion. Whether the two women will escape or if Reed knows what he’s talking about is factors into the cerebral aspect of the film. Martin Freeman constantly looked miserable and bored out of his mind when he appeared in films like The Hobbit trilogy or the Sherlock TV series. He suddenly looked like he was having the time of his life when he shifted film genres, plunged into horror, and starred in the 2017 film Ghost Stories. It seems to be the same case for Hugh Grant. While this isn’t his first horror film, Heretic is his first film in the genre in 36 years (Grant starred in The Lair of the White Room in 1988). Grant is noticeably lively in his performance in Heretic though and seems downright giddy to be torturing people. With cinematography by Chung Chung-hoon (Last Night in Soho, The Handmaiden), Heretic has two visually memorable sequences thanks to how they’re shot. When Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton first arrive, Mr. Reed leaves the room to check on his “wife.” While he’s gone, Barnes turns the candle he blew out and discovers what the scent of the candle is. As she slowly turns the candle, the camera turns with it. Reed has a miniature duplicate of his house complete with little figures that represent Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton. In a sequence when Sister Paxton is trying to run away from Mr. Reed, we’re following her movements in the miniature but it seamlessly transitions from the model to the real thing when she enters the room and slams the door. The method in which Heretic is written is somewhat odd. Not quite horrific enough to be scary with its religion-defying dialogue taking center stage, Heretic is essentially a two-hour sermon attempting to destroy your faith with some splashes of blood and a raggedy woman or two dying in a blueberry pie. It feels like if you walked into Heretic devoted to the Mormon religion, you’ll walk out of the theater a different person. Mr. Reed’s arguments regarding all religions stemming from the same concept are portrayed in a way that is believable and convincing. He somehow rambles about Monopoly and board games, music, and vinyl records to demonstrate similarities between certain board games, how some songs are essentially the same tunes with different lyrics, and that all religions are more similar than dissimilar. While the dialogue-driven film can be interesting, it’s also fairly boring. There’s an unsettling aspect to Mr. Reed’s behavior that capitalizes on the tension in the film. But there are also these long stretches where nothing happens besides the next topic of conversation or a weak payoff where someone’s throat is cut with a box cutter or something. Heretic is beautifully shot with a stellar performance from Hugh Grant, but its intriguing concept is drowned out by the desire to deconvert the audience and have a lukewarm reveal regarding whatever the one-true religion is. Watching the film is like being trapped in a church of a religion you don’t believe in with an overwhelmingly passionate pastor trying to dissuade you from ever coming back.

No matter what anyone might say, putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t change the fact that one is still dealing with a pig. And that’s very much the case with this dismally failed attempt at smart horror from writer-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. When two naïve Mormon missionaries (Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East) visit the remote home of a creepy, loquacious middle-aged loner (Hugh Grant) in an attempt to convert him, the trio launches into a protracted conversation about the nature of “the one true religion.” To a certain extent, it’s an intriguing philosophical discussion – at least for a while – until it gradually descends into a series of longwinded fits and starts characterized by disjointed, unrelated, unresolved segments that try viewer patience. The dialogue increasingly amounts to a series of overwrought contrivances undermined by implausible character development, particularly among the two supposed innocents who begin spouting lines that are difficult to accept in light of their supposedly gullible, unsophisticated nature and narrow worldview. But then, in a desperate attempt to retain fading audience attention, the picture degenerates into little more than a meandering slasher movie, albeit with better production design than one typically finds in such fare. What’s more, this offering’s exasperating script heavily “borrows” from an endless stream of religious, philosophical and cinematic sources, one even suggesting that this could turn into the second coming of “The Butterfly Effect” and “Matrix” franchises. And, while Grant and his co-stars genuinely deliver more than capable portrayals of the three principals, even their performances aren’t enough to cover the inherent weaknesses of this material, no matter how much lipstick is applied to it. Considering the foregoing, I’m truly mystified by the much-celebrated response this offering has been accorded given its tiresome narrative and pretentious, largely pointless overall direction, an experiment that just doesn’t work. As a fan of the smart horror genre and its aim of elevating the content of more classic releases in this area of cinema, I’m seriously disappointed that the inspired creators of “A Quiet Place” (2018) haven’t come up with something better here, an outcome that’s definitely heretical in itself.