The smell of blueberry pie has never been as ominous as in Heretic, the creepy religious horror from writer/director duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, known for writing A Quiet Place. The comforting dessert treat is merely a ruse, a way of lowering the guard of two innocent Mormon missionaries, Sister Paxton (Chloe East) and Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher), before dropping quite a crisis of faith upon them. But then, so is the presence of Hugh Grant a ruse in a way. The cheery actor known for cheeky rom-com roles has been considerably more adventurous in this latter stage of his career, but here he embarks on his first trip to the dark side and tackles it with such disturbing glee that he should’ve done something like this long ago. Grant, wearing us down with that familiar smile and upfront vanity, is the menacing highlight of a film that promises a lot but doesn’t deliver the expected bounty.
Grant, decked out in spectacles and comfortable clothing your grandpa might have in his closet, plays Mr. Reed, a chatty, neighborly sort who has expressed interest in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. So the Church sends Sisters Paxton and Barnes to his home in an attempt at converting the Englishman to their beliefs. On the way, the Sisters chat rather naively about the world, with Paxton suggesting the despairing actress in the porn she “accidentally” watched was proof of the righteousness of their cause. When they knock on Reed’s door, he greets them nicely enough and welcomes them inside and out of the rain. But when the girls inform him they can only join him if another woman is present, he beckons for his wife, who is baking pie in the other room. His eagerness to chat with them about his openness to conversation is exactly what they needed to hear. One doesn’t need to imagine all of the rejections they’ve faced when speaking with others, we see some of it. Especially for women of such a young age, they are woefully out of touch with their peers. Mr. Reed is a welcoming change of pace.
But it’s all a trap. Heretic is not a scary movie unless the prospect of any organized religion scares the crap out of you. This is a dialogue-heavy film in which Reed skillfully maneuvers conversation so that he always has the upper hand. What began as honest back-and-forth eventually gives way to him chiding the girls for their beliefs, using a variety of pop culture references to support his point and shake their faith. For those used to such go-nowhere debates, Reed comes across like a zealot who perhaps spent too long watching YouTube videos from angry ex-believers. While he shakes the confidence of Sister Paxton, it’s Sister Barnes who sniffs it out and challenges Reed, which is when all turns to Hell. When he asks them whether they still believe his wife is in the next room, or if they only believed it because he told them it was true and they wanted it to be true, the Sisters are set on a path that will force them to look inside their hearts for what they truly believe. Do they believe in miracles?
A claustrophobic chamberpiece so stifling you can almost smell the acrid sulfur stink wafting from the grim basement in Reed’s labyrinthine home, Heretic isn’t short on atmosphere. However, the long setup and challenging religious exchanges don’t come with much payoff. When the Sisters are finally forced to put their faith to the test, the film loses what it had going for it, which are the genuinely stimulating discourse between the Sisters and Reed, with Grant tackling the role with devilish relish. As the film turns further into horror, it grows more preposterous and decidedly less interesting. But you won’t find more reasons to be afraid, and when Reed makes his ultimate case you’ll find that Heretic doesn’t have anything new to say about organized religion that most of us haven’t already figured out.
A24 will open Heretic in theaters on November 8th.
