‘Heretic’ is Thought-Provoking and Entertaining [Review]

Some time ago, recently, I happened upon my wife who was watching the newest reality television sensation, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, and I couldn’t help but partake. I’m a little bit familiar with the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints, but not enough to really understand, well, anything about it. To me, Mormonism seems like a faith that requires extreme dedication. As someone who puts in the bare minimum when it comes to practicing faith, and I’m not entirely proud of that, I do have a great deal of respect for those who dedicate so much of their lives to practicing faith, especially one as peculiar as Mormonism. Because of that inherent devotion, there is a wide array of circumstances that can happen upon a practicing Mormon that would undoubtedly test their faith. All of this to say that a horror movie where the conflict is faith-based with a focus on Mormonism is a match made in religious horror heaven. So, let’s get into the newest entry in the faith-based horror canon, Heretic… 

Heretic

From writer/director duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, of A Quiet Place fame, Heretic (great title by the way) is centered around a pair of female Mormon practitioners who are on a mission to convert as many citizens as they can to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Unfortunately for this pair of females, Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton, played by Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, respectively, they do not happen upon someone that is just watching the newest reality television sensation, Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, but instead, they happen upon a menacing theological “expert”, Mr. Reed, played by the sharp-tongued legend Hugh Grant. After some tension between the three upon Barnes’ and Paxton’s arrival, a game of Cat, Mouse and Mouse ensues. Mr. Reed was potentially interested in becoming a member of the Mormon church, hence why he was on the list of people who the sisters were making house calls to, but as it turns out, his intentions are much more sinister than that…

A Beck and Woods Story

Before we continue on with plot specifics and the theological focus of Heretic, I want to circle back to the filmmakers, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. Beck and Woods burst onto the scene by writing the screenplay for A Quiet Place, which was directed by and stars John Krasinski. A Quiet Place was a monster hit, both critically and commercially, making almost $350 million dollars at the box office, while also being universally loved amongst fans for its harrowing story, loveable characters and absolutely thrilling sequences. A Quiet Place allowed for the filmmaking duo of Beck and Woods to have the creative capital necessary in order to get their projects made, that they would go on to write and direct. In the A Quiet Place aftermath, Beck and Woods wrote and directed the criminally underrated and underseen Haunt, in 2019. They then made the commercial and critical flop, 65, in 2023. I revisited 65 before seeing Heretic, and it really was just a simple misfire. There was something there, but it just didn’t all come together somehow. But now partnering with A24, a famously filmmaker-friendly production and distribution outfit, Beck and Woods have their most seemingly personal, most well written and not quite their best directed (I firmly stand for Haunt in this regard) but best overall movie for sure with Heretic. Personally, I’m a huge fan of the Beck/Woods duo. They are famously and vehemently against the use of AI in the filmmaking process and are massive proponents of helping young writers to become successful. I don’t remember the year this was, but I remember them being the judges for an open screenplay competition for Screencraft, I believe, where they would lend their time to these up-and-coming screenwriters. Yes, a lot of writers and filmmakers partake in these types of things, but I just remember it firsthand, and it stood out, so I thought it was worth mentioning in the context of Beck and Woods being positive and influential forces in genre filmmaking. I hope they continue to get financing for their projects, and it seems as though Heretic will make decent money, probably in the $20 million range, so that would be huge for them to continue to have that leeway to make original movies that release on the big screen. Their filmmaking sensibilities seem to be in the same shade of a Robert Zemeckis type, meaning wide-ranging genre work that can take on a fun-loving vibe at times, but also a deeply sinister vibe at other times. Anyways, enough about the fellas, let’s get back to Heretic…

Heretic Continued…

In Heretic, the Hugh Grant character is obsessed with finding the “one-true religion” and spouts his seemingly found theories about the idea of religion as a whole onto these girls as they are trapped in his house against their will. Worth mentioning, this isn’t a spoiler, if you didn’t see the trailer, or you don’t see that coming within two seconds of runtime then I just don’t know what to tell you. As devout Mormons, Barnes and Paxton are shell shocked and insulted by these insinuations about religion as a whole, but Mormonism specifically. Part of why this story works for me is because of the vulnerability and innocence of the girls. I felt awful for them throughout the entirety of the beginning for no particular reason at all other than some light bullying endured, but a character flaw of mine is to feel bad for people who believe in something so fiercely, even if it is considered different, and find themselves reconciling with being “weird”. Not to say Mormonism is weird, I don’t think it is at all, but the way they can be treated and perceived bums me out quite a bit, and Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East wear that perfectly. There is a lot of talking in Heretic, as it is just three characters essentially, but the back-and-forth throughout the entirety of the runtime is engaging and interesting food for thought. I’ll avoid spoilers, but there is a point made by the Hugh Grant character that religions are just like music in the way that the more that time passes, and ideas are reused and reimagined to be something different, in the end, they are just an iteration of that original piece of work, or idea. There are some great needle drops of good songs, one especially famous one by Radiohead, used to prove this theory. As the movie progresses, Barnes and Paxtons limits are pushed to the edge, both physically as well as mentally. Heretic does a great job at introducing an idea, building on that with plenty of tension and dark humor, buoyed by the Hugh Grant tour-de-force performance and of course, all held together by Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East as Barnes and Paxton, but more on them coming up…

Technically Speaking…

Technically speaking, Heretic is an incredibly effective piece of work. Heretic isn’t trying to do too much, stays grounded in this reality (to an extent, but more on that later as well) and knows exactly what story it is trying to tell. In terms of high concept storytelling, Heretic is exceptionally well done. The build-up and payoff in all of the tense sequences felt professionally done every step of the way. I saw Heretic with a decent sized audience, and everyone was most definitely locked in for the entirety. When considering Heretic is mostly just three characters in one location with multiple rooms, that could become stagnant quite quickly, but Beck/Woods and the filmmaking team as a whole crushed the atmosphere and kept the camera alive at all times. For as much talking as there was, the coverage was good enough where you don’t lose yourself in the train of people just talking back and forth to each other. I was mostly impressed with the screenwriting in Heretic, but the technical filmmaking was absolutely nothing to scoff at, albeit lacking in flash. It just wasn’t that type of movie, or story to tell though. Beck and Woods have a really great feel for setting up prolonged sequences that are structured specifically to build tension, and deliver payoff all in that one sequence, and Heretic is a prime example of that skill…

Stars In the Making

The performances in Heretic are really what I was most impressed by. Sophie Thatcher does a good job at playing the prototypical modern leading lady who is cunning and wise, but with a seemingly troubled past that she wears on her face at all times. We’ve all seen it so many times. Even though I was super impressed by Thatcher’s performance, I wasn’t that impressed by the character. It was the typical archetype that I just referenced a few sentences ago. I don’t mean to make this a competition in a way, but I was far more impressed with the Paxton character, and Chloe East’s performance as that character. The Paxton character was so unique in the genre, in my opinion at least. Paxton was a naive, sweet, empathetic and also sympathetic character that I was really caught off guard by. I felt so bad for this character purely because of how naturally she plays an empathetic character, and even though some of the early writing seemed manipulative to me at first, by the end I loved that early setup for this character, it all pays off. I haven’t seen a lot of Chloe East, but she really blew me away as this character that I’m so not used to. The Mormon girl who is innocent and makes pop-culture references, is funny but also faithful to her beliefs and clearly has that look to her where you know when looking at her that she is a deeply conflicted soul. The Barnes character I got right away, but the Paxton character was a breath of fresh air, and Chloe East really brought that character to life…

Hugh Grant = Legend

If I was to make a list of top five actors who I want to watch perform monologues, Grant would have to be on that list. I don’t know if it is because he is a proper Englishman, but the way he is able to go on a diatribe while also maintaining a sense of humor with quick witted retorts and remarks, delivered perfectly at each note. Grant performs like a true stage actor and is so proficient at what he does. This role for Grant is a match made in heaven and will probably end up being one of his best performances of his prolific career. Grant as Mr. Reed was electrifying in every moment, menacing, funny and really hard to get a good read on, no pun intended, which probably was the intention of casting him in the first place. Without spoiling, that character could have gone so many different ways, none being surprising, and none being disappointing, because Grant allows for so much room to operate story-wise because he can do so much on screen, and command such a presence that anything would be believable. I was pretty blown away by Grant in Heretic, and I was blown away by the girls as well, just good stuff all around. And oh yeah, Topher Grace was in Heretic as the fourth lead, playing Elder Kennedy, basically meaning Barnes and Paxton’s boss. He plays a small yet sort of important part, Heretic being one of many films that he just briefly pops up in where you don’t even realize it is him. So, yeah, that was pretty funny…

An Emphatic Finale that Lacked Explosiveness

Okay, now to my least favorite thing to do. Talk about the flaws of the movie. For Heretic, I had a hard time finding any real standout flaws that irked me. I will say though, I thought the third and final act kind of lost its way a little bit in regard to sensible storytelling. I thought the first and second acts were 100% brilliant, no notes. Again, I’m not spoiling here, but there was a certain point, and certain thing that happened, where I was a little bit disappointed that this was the route, we were going, and this was the route we were going with this character. What I like about religious based movies, is that the outlandish, mythical stuff can end up making the movie so much more impactful. The first thing that comes to mind in that regard is Frailty, one of my favorite movies. In Frailty, Bill Paxton’s character sees an angel, and embarks on a killing spree, while proclaiming he was appointed to do so by God himself, and that the audience was never really clear on if what he was seeing and saying was real, or if he was just a serial killer. This mystery was the crux of the whole movie and would have folded on itself in the third act if it went a different way. But the way it went with the unanswerable, eerie and mysterious circumstances that ended up playing out left me and I’m sure many others completely stunned at the conclusion of that movie. My jaw was on the floor at the end of Frailty. I thought Heretic could have used a more jaw-on-the-floor conclusion. Not to say it was a bad conclusion, but I just wished that Heretic had gone down a different path towards the finale. That alternative path, in my opinion, could have led to something truly special, because the entire buildup was phenomenal, but Heretic just didn’t take a big swing in the finale like I thought it might. At the end of the day though, this was the story Beck and Woods wanted to tell, so I still very much appreciate it for what it ended up being, but there was clearly an exclamation point missing in that finale. At the end of the movie, everyone got up, agreed that it was a really good movie, shrugged, and walked out. Well, nobody else in my theater did that, but I sure did, to myself…

Story Wise…

I thought the writing was particularly excellent, especially in the first and second acts of the movie. The back and forth between Grant and the girls was so sharp, eloquent and thought provoking. There wasn’t a moment where I was like “Oh, this is straight up dumb” but instead I was deeply engaged by what the characters were saying, how they were interacting with each other and how that impacts the progression of the story. Like I mentioned, the performances play a big part of this, but Beck and Woods deserve all the flowers for making the story sing with tons of sharp and witty dialogue to go with classical build-up and payoff in the tense moments. The dialogue in Heretic was succinct but also verbose when it had to be. The story kept moving, and the conversations never went stale, that is, until the end, but we talked about that already. Oh yeah. Can’t forget to mention that there was a moment where Hugh Grant does a Jar Jar Binks impression, yes, that Jar Jar Binks. That was something else. Beck and Woods broke onto the Hollywood scene because of their writing prowess and will remain in the mix because of their writing prowess. I love reading what they write, and look forward to reading this screenplay as well…

To Conclude…

I found Heretic to be a really fun time at the movies. Heretic is unique, entertaining and actually has something to say. The idea of religion has been such a hot button issue since the literal beginning of time, and is a really hard subject to explore deeply, but I found Heretic to be an engaging piece of genre filmmaking that I was thinking about for days after seeing it. From the writing to the filmmaking to the performances, everyone brought it. Even with my distaste for the final act, I can’t imagine Heretic not ending up on my year-end list. I definitely recommend anyone go check this out. Overall, Heretic is thought provoking and entertaining. Isn’t that really all we want from the movies?

Wicked Horror Rating: 7.5/10

From A24, Heretic is playing exclusively in theaters as of November 8th, 2024.