Heretic (2024) A24/Horror RT: 110 minutes Rated R (some bloody violence) Director: Scott Beck and Bryan Woods Screenplay: Scott Beck and Bryan Woods Music: Chris Bacon Cinematography: Chung Chung-Hoon Release date: November 8, 2024 (US) Cast: Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East, Topher Grace, Elle Young.
Rating: ***
If it’s A24, it has to be elevated horror.
The above is one of the rules of modern horror. If it’s released by indie studio A24 (Hereditary, Midsommar), chances are it’s going to be one of those elevated deals with the phrase “but it’s really about” in most plot descriptions. I think we’ll be seeing and hearing it a lot in regard to Heretic.
On the surface, Heretic is about two young girls trapped in the home of a creepy stranger. In other hands, it would likely be a superficial horror film toned down just enough to be PG-13. In the hands of Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (Haunt), it’s really about the fallacies of organized religion. The antagonist, in order to teach his victims a harsh lesson, subjects them to an ordeal that will surely force them to question their belief system.
Sisters Barnes (Thatcher, The Boogeyman) and Paxton (East, The Fabelmans), missionaries with the Church of Latter-Day Saints, knock at the door of Mr. Reed (Grant, The Gentlemen). They’re there to tell him about their religion. He invites them inside. They tell him they can’t unless there’s another woman present. He assures them his wife is inside baking a blueberry pie. They come in and try to tell him about their church. That’s when things start to get weird.
There’s something unsettling about Mr. Reed and it’s not that he’s something of an authority on the subject of religion, not entirely anyway. He gives off a bad vibe. The girls, upon discovering he’s been lying about his wife, decide they should leave. The problem is he’s locked the front door and refuses to open it. After delivering a lecture in which he claims to know the “one true religion”, he tells Barnes and Paxton they’re free to leave through the back. He gives them a choice of which door, one marked “Belief” and the other “Disbelief”. Choose accordingly.
I suppose it goes without saying that the nightmare really begins when the girls go through the door of their choice. That’s pretty much a given. What Mr. Reed puts them through is sick and freaky. Now let me qualify that statement. It’s not a Saw-type situation involving elaborate booby traps and severe physical torture. Heretic is absolutely NOT torture porn. That’s not to say the girls don’t suffer. Reed goes to extreme lengths to make his point about religion. He makes them question everything they’ve ever been taught about God and their faith. That’s mental torture which can be as bad as or worse than the physical kind.
This is NOT the charming, awkward Hugh Grant we remember from classic rom-coms like Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Love Actually. It’s a darker, sinister Grant whose smile reeks of malevolence. In Heretic, he’s like a puppet master playing with the girls like they’re pieces on a game board. He might allow them free will, but he’s always in control. Grant doesn’t overdo it in the role. Rather, he dials things back a notch or two making Reed a quiet but no less dangerous menace. I wouldn’t say Reed is one of the greatest horror movie villains of all time, but he’s chilling in a way some others aren’t.
One of the things I like best about Heretic is that it doesn’t give us one-dimensional victims. Barnes and Paxton aren’t merely lambs set up for the slaughter. They’re actual characters with depth. Paxton is a lifelong Mormon with less street smarts than Barnes, a convert whose mother joined the church after a tragedy. She’s also the more pragmatic of the pair. Whereas Paxton answers Reed’s questions no matter how uncomfortable, Barnes is thinking of a way out. Both actresses do fine work, but East gains a slight edge by refusing to depict her naïve character as a mere damsel-in-distress. Instead, she’s a scared girl who must tap into her inner strength if she means to survive.
Heretic is essentially a three-person piece meaning you only need to concern yourselves with those three characters (Reed, Barnes and Paxton). There is one other character of note, the girls’ overseer at the church (Grace, BlacKkKlansman). When they don’t return from their mission work on time, he goes out looking for them. He shows up at Reed’s house looking for them. Reed denies ever seeing them. That’s more or less the extent of his involvement with the story. He’s merely a devise to ratchet up the tension a little.
It’s hard to say how Heretic will go over with the masses. I think a lot of people are going to be put off by it. It’s not a horror movie in the vein of Terrifier or Smile. It’s smarter and more cerebral. There’s a lot of talking, especially in the beginning. It takes a while for something to “happen”. To the film’s credit, none of it is actually boring. Grant’s character makes some interesting points about organized religion and how they’re all basically variations of the same idea. In one scene, he points out the similarities between all the major religions. It held my attention, but it won’t hold everybody’s. I saw a few audience members getting restless during these scenes. The guy sitting in front of me fell asleep a couple of times.
Heretic lapses into familiar territory as it gets closer to the end by leaning into some of the usual conventions of the genre. Where it all leads is freaky. That’s fine and all, but what really sticks out for me is the ambiguous final scene. I’m not going to give it away, but I do think its meaning will be cause for debate among exiting viewers.
It’s been a fairly strong year for horror and while I can’t say Heretic is as good as The Substance and In a Violent Nature, it is quite good. It has a few decent “BOO!” scenes. The cinematography by Chung Chung-Hoon (Oldboy) is a real asset. He makes excellent use of the single setting, Mr. Reed’s labyrinthine home. We get a palpable feeling of claustrophobia as the camera peers down dark hallways and staircases. The house itself feels threatening with its deceptive coziness. When you put it all together, it makes for a fairly effective horror movie, one with a brain.
