Heretic
Director: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods
Writer: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods
Cast: Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East, Topher Grace, Elle Young
Seen on: 19.12.2024
Part of: the SLASH Filmfestival Christmas Party

Plot:
Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) are Mormons, doing their missionary duties. This leads them to knock on the door of Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant) who showed himself open to religious discussions a little earlier. Even though Mrs. Reed is hiding in the kitchen, the Sisters enter his home – and soon find themselves trapped in a cruel game.

Heretic came with a lot of buzz, and while it does deserve some of it, it doesn’t deserve quite as much as I had hoped.

The movie’s first part is easily its strongest. The way Barnes and Paxton get drawn into Reed’s house and into his conversations, how they realize that something is seriously off, how they try to get out of it – that part is masterful, tense, pretty much perfection from script to acting to cinematography. I was at the edge of my seat.

But once the film moves to the cellar, it starts to unravel a bit. The acting remains fantastic, and Hugh Grant obviously has the time of his life playing evil – that is definitely entertaining to watch. But the direction the narrative takes just doesn’t really make sense to me. Reed was trying to prove that there is no higher power by orchestrating something that looks like a higher power. Okay, but then shouldn’t it be his point that you discover that he fooled you? That does not seem to be the case here.

Or maybe I missed his point? That is entirely possible since things got very confusing. A part of it seems to be that the script kept trying to surprise us with new twists, but a bigger part was that I am uncertain whether it actually knew what it was trying to say. It certainly tried to keep things open, to not fall on the side of atheism, nor religion which is something I would generally like but in this case, I would have appreciated a little more clarity. And fewer women as props in the story. I certainly don’t feel like the movie thought about the gender implications too much here, and that seemed like a missed opportunity.

That being said, I have definitely seen worse films and films that would have fallen apart even more after the strong first part. While I expected a little more based just on the hype the film came with, the film definitely has its moments. Even if the best scene probably remains the first dialogue between Barnes and Paxton before Reed ever even shows up.

Summarizing: starts strong, doesn’t end that strongly.