Hugh Grant has been doing a lot to dismantle his dashingly disheveled ’90s rom-com image in the last 15 years or more, but Heretic might be the film to blow it all to kingdom come. Written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, a key part of the creative team behind the thoughtfully unnerving A Quiet Place franchise, Heretic is a genuinely different kind of horror, one that uses conventions from all across the genre — from the old dark house movie to the straight-up slasher flick — and puts them in the service of a playful script that makes some seriously subversive comments about the world today.
Sporting Jeffrey Dahmer specs and a cardigan he has described offscreen as “wanky,” Grant plays the seemingly genial Mr. Reed, but before we get to his lived-in but oddly forbidding cottage we meet the film’s leading ladies: Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East). From their opening discussion of condoms, sex and porn, it is clear that, though they are both devout, they are probably a bit more questioning and self-aware than some other members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, aka Mormons. “People think we’re weird,” notes Sister Paxton. “That South Park musical kind of makes fun of us.”
Sister Barnes, however, is holding steady, and, though a storm is coming in, she insists the pair stop off to make one last house call, where Mr. Reed is waiting, having filled in a form stating that he’d “like to know more” about their religion. Indeed, he is most enthused by their visit and invites them in. The girls demur, since their religion (and their fear for their own personal safety) demands they not be alone with a man in the absence of another woman. Problem immediately solved. “Do you like pie?” he counters. Because it appears there is a Mrs. Reed, and she’s busy in the kitchen baking a blueberry dessert.
The two Mormons, assuaged by this — not to mention the alluring scent of blueberry pie that is wafting through the house — step right in and get down to work. “Are you ready to hear our heavenly father’s plan for you?” they ask. But Mr. Reed is not, as Joe Biden might say, kidding around. Mr. Reed has brought them here for a very specific purpose; having researched every religion across the globe, he is not so much interested in their religion but the depth of their belief. “It’s impossible to find a faith and a doctrine you believe in,” he complains, having (presumably) window-shopped his way through the whole lot of ’em.
Mr. Reed’s question is a simple one — “What is the one true religion?” — and the girls are out of their depth here. For one thing, Mr. Reed is a master of comparative religion and uses some spectacular analogies — notably the board game Monopoly and Radiohead’s song “Creep” — to make his point that their religion, like all the rest, is just another iteration of a pre-existing I.P. To add to the intensity of his thunderous speechifying, the lights keep flickering (“A foible of the house”) and the storm is getting steadily worse.
Why don’t they just leave, you start to wonder, and it occurs to them too. But Mr. Reed has their coats, which also contain the keys to their bicycle locks. At which point we discover the Saw-like information that the front door is on a timer and will not open until morning. There are, however, two exits that lead out to the back way, down to the sea (no, that doesn’t make much sense either, but the film is ahead of you on that point). Just to heighten the tension, Mr. Reed chalks the words “BELIEF” and “DISBELIEF” on each door.
Like all good low-budget, high-concept horrors, Heretic never leaves this location and commits wholly to its concept, like a gender-switch version of Eli Roth’s underappreciated 2015 home-invasion movie Knock Knock (itself an iteration of 1977’s Death Game). It gets a little wayward towards the end, adding some more lurid surprises in the vein of 2022’s Barbarian (and, in a way, the much more extreme 2008 French movie Martyrs), but Heretic doesn’t go full Cabin in the Woods when it comes to wrapping itself up.
In fact, it’s like a more sensible, more satisfying Longlegs, a game of cat and mouse that extends to include the audience. “Have you figured it out yet?” asks Mr. Reed, but this film is much more than a whodunnit. In fact, there’s a lot going on in the title alone. Who is the heretic? The subtle thrill of this deceptively intelligent thrill ride is that, after listening to all of Mr. Reed’s beautifully cogent arguments, by the end of the movie it could well be you.
Title: Heretic
Festival: Toronto (Special Presentations)
Distributor: A24
Director-screenwriters: Scott Beck and Bryan Woods
Cast: Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East
Running time: 1 hr 50 mins