GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★☆ (3.8/5)
Rated: MA15+
Directed by: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods
Written by: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods
Produced by: Stacey Sher, Scott Beck, Bryan Woods, Julia Glausi, Jeanette Volturno
Starring: Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East, Topher Grace, Elle Young.
‘How do you feel about awkward questions?’
Seeing Hugh Grant play a villain in a horror movie is a bit of a treat, especially when he flexes his storytelling skills.
Meet, Mr. Reed. A man in search of the one true religion.
Mormon missionaries, Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) take a break from door knocking and looking to recruit converts to sit on a bench, facing a huge mountain talking sex and if the magnum condom is actually as advertised, massive.
It’s two innocent girls talking about something unexpected yet gives insight into their character – Sister Paxton showing a naive curiosity, Sister Barnes from the streets of Philadelphia with a tougher backstory where she lost her dad to illness.
After tolerating yet another humiliating show of people’s dislike or misunderstanding of their calling, ‘they think we’re weird,’ the two Sisters’ ride their bikes through the snow and rain to knock on the door of a potential convert.
Sister Paxton can barely hide her determination.
It’s the little things that hint of Mr. Reed’s intention.
‘I’ve never had a Wendy. I mean, met a Wendy.’
The film’s foundation is word play, dialogue and the dance of theological argument; but the build of suspense is about the close up of the eyes, the sharpness of a look. Of looking too closely.
The tension builds with the back and forth between the Sisters as they come to understand the game Mr. Reed is playing is a trap. And it’s the realisation of the game Mr. Reed has trapped them into playing that heightens the suspense – the surprise of each character as they reveal themselves in dialogue that twists through intellectual debate about religion in order to navigate a way through the psychology of a madman who has gotten lost in his search of the one true religion.
He’s not wrong. And neither are they.
It becomes a matter of argument. Of faith.
Most of the film is set in the house of Mr. Reed. A deceptively simple stop to highlight the dialogue and closeups of facial expressions. To show the fear of: Belief or Disbelief.
Both are terrifying.
Hugh Grant states, ‘I found Heretic to be daring, not just because it questions a lot of things that many people hold sacred, but for the fact that it’s set in one house over the course of one long night and features a lot of talking — hardly normal practice for a horror film.’
The house itself becomes part of the game.
Director and writer, Scott Beck (also screenwriter, along with Bryan Woods of, A Quiet Place (2018)) states, “We had to figure out the psychology of Reed early on in order to understand why his house appears the way it does, serving as a kind of weapon against his young visitors,” says Beck. “Reed is God-playing in a way, pulling these characters through each room so it feels like a gauntlet or a game, consistently evolving to worse and worse places. It became about marrying the character of Reed with the production design and finding a methodology behind it to show how his mind works.”
Heretic is unique in that it’s a storyteller thriller. Not explosive but a well-rounded creeping poetry based on theological argument from a man driven mad by the search for meaning.
For me the film peters out a little at the end but as Beck states, ‘Hugh has quietly become one the greatest character actors working today,’ making Heretic worth a watch.