‘Heretic’ is an A24 Studios 2024 psychological thriller/horror film, written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods and starring Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, and Chloe East. This movie came as kind of a surprise to me, I hadn’t seen a new movie in theaters in around a month and wanted to get back to the movies for myself and back to this blog for you people! So, I looked at what was playing, watched some trailers, and of course landed on the horror movie in theaters currently, Heretic. A24 has become known to me for releasing very good and well-acted horror movies kind of under the radar that end up getting more praise later on after their releases, this feels like another one of those films just waiting to happen. This story was really rather simple, the film takes place mainly in 1 house and only has 3 actors eating up the screentime for the majority of the film’s run, yet I was thoroughly entranced and captivated throughout the entire run time which says something for the story and the acting ability of our 3 leads. Grant, Thatcher, and East all played their parts wonderfully and I was completely bought into all of their characters, but Grant was the true surprise for me in his role as the creepy Mr. Reed. I guess I’ve just known him to be the silly rom-com 90s heartthrob guy, but he’s recently spread his wings a bit more as an actor and now extended it into horror and I can say personally, I think he crushed this role.
At its core, this film was really a debate on the legitimacy of religion and the battle of wills between our main protagonists (Sister Paxton and Sister Barnes) and our main antagonist (Mr. Reed). Some of the long monologues by Grant as Mr. Reed where he poked holes in various religions were truly thought provoking and the protagonists, specifically Sister Barnes, rebuttals were equally interesting and made you think. This was a horror film yes, but I truly felt like I was learning new information about religion and other various things throughout the film to the point that after I left the theater, I started doing my own research to learn more. I saw that Mormon parents were worried about the release of this film and expectedly so as the main girls are Mormon missionaries and Hugh Grant’s character kind of belittles their religion and attempts to shake their faith, but I don’t think this movie at all shone the Mormon religion in a bad light. If anything, I think this movie actually kind of made them look good. The Mormon girls were the good guys that you were rooting for throughout the runtime, and as I mentioned above, they always had rebuttals and gave their side of the argument when Mr. Reed tried to belittle them or their religion as a whole. They also showed well I believe how society as a whole kind of views Mormons in the early moments of the film as the girls are in town preparing for their day and you get to witness how some of the townspeople interact with them. Most people walk right past them and don’t give them the time of day when they attempt to pleasantly stop them to talk about their faith (which is to be expected but still rude), and a group of teens in town prank and pants one of the Mormon girls after asking if it’s true that she wore “magic underwear” beforehand, really drawing sympathy for them and allowing you as the viewer to kind of step into their shoes for a moment. Mormons are generally good people with good intentions (as I’d hope most of us are), they just do and wear certain things as a part of their religion and have a strict, strong sense of faith that restricts them from doing or participating in certain activities and it’s out of the norm at times for regular society, but that should be okay. They’re working on being as good of people as they can be in their own eyes for Christ and God and as long as they’re not hurting anyone while doing it or forcing it upon others then there’s no harm in being different, it’s actually pretty cool. That’s religious freedom baby!
I went to go see this movie during the 4 hour on a Monday because I just wanted to be able to lounge out and not have to worry about crowds or anything and boy, I sure didn’t! I saw this in the SuperScreen theater, so it was one of the largest theaters in the place, and I was the only one in there. Sitting in the middle of this very large, very dark theater room. One of the best feelings there is. So yeah, I’m sure that had something to do with my experience with this film, but it really was enthralling while being so simple in structure. The tension in this film built and built from the moment Mr. Reed invited the girls into his home until it reached a fever pitch. The friendly uneasiness that Hugh Grant was able to portray was such a well-acted dichotomy of emotion and really put you on edge and made you feel creeped out of him as a viewer, while hanging on his every word and soaking in all the information he was spewing during his monologues. He was clearly a very intelligent and well-versed man but something about him and his house was very off from the jump. Every moment they were inside his house, every layer that was slowly peeled back to reveal more of his plan, unveiled more and more how psychotic and out of his mind he really was. This was one of the surprises of the year for me, A24 delivered another under the radar banger, and Hugh Grant showed he truly is a creep, he’s a weirdo (you’ll get it if you watch the movie) and he belongs in horror movies as much as he belongs in anything else. Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East really got to show off their chops as well and shined bright in their roles and I hope to see them in future projects, and I wasn’t really aware of either of them before this film so that says something. This is worth the watch. Come for the horror, stay for the religious debate, leave with a plethora of new information. Go see this in theaters if you get the chance or check it out on streaming once it is released!
