Hugh Grant Serves up One True Religion, one Slice at a Time.
DIRECTED BY SCOTT BECK AND BRYAN WOODS/2024
No one should be doing these things. And yet they persist. Be it two naive teenage girls knock, knock, knocking on the door of a seemingly (but not) benign older stranger, or two experienced filmmakers making a horror film about it that plays out primarily as a lecture.
It’s not that the lecture is uninteresting- to the credit of writer/directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (65), and especially the lecture-delivering actor Hugh Grant, it’s quite interesting. Which means that Heretic is, in fact, not a bad film. It’s actually pretty good. Quite good, in spite of breaking nearly every conventional screenwriting rule. Once the girls are lured into Grant’s character’s classically musty sitting room, he proceeds to launch into a detailed lecture on comparative religions, all the while teasing his pending thesis that there is only One. True. Religion.
Did the girls bring this upon themselves? Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, perfectly paired and perfect for this, play Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Per protocols of that particularly rigid church, they are out and about doing their mandated missionary duty, knocking on doors in their small town to share the Good News. They are self-conscious of not being like other girls their age but remain nevertheless fully devoted to the task at hand, tracts in hand. When they get to Mr. Reed’s (Grant) door, however, they’ve walked unknowingly into a trap.
Despite usually going about their proselytizing by the book, they accept his invitation to come in. It is, after all, violently storming outside, and he assures them that his wife is in the kitchen (A woman must be present when female missionaries speak to a male), just finishing making a delicious blueberry pie. Would they care to stay and have some? Of course. He assures them that they can leave at any time.
In what is Heretic’s greatest leap of faith, we soon learn along with Sisters Paxton and Barnes that Mr. Reed has apparently been sitting in waiting for just such a knock on his door as this. Soon enough, he’s launching into the most ominous TED Talk ever, complete with timed musical cues and carefully cultivated visual aids. All is at the ready; his delivery is flawless. (That goes for Grant as well, basking in this dark tour-de-force performance). Good thing he was home when the girls happened to drop by. Good thing it was storming so profusely. Good thing that they agreed to come in. Good thing there really was freshly made pie…
But none of that matters. Heretic has already reeled us in. We quickly learn that just as Mr. Reed’s home is no ordinary cozy old house, Heretic is no ordinary horror film. In fact, many a conventional slasher fan may quickly lose patience with it, as the question of “Is this even horror??” is entirely valid… up to a point.
The premise is too delicious to deny, and therefore forgivable of its contrivances. Mr. Reed gets to live the dream of many an Evangelical, getting to elaborately one-up and turn the tables on well-meaning “cult members” seeking to convert him. His revelation of his “One True Religion” (which will not be revealed in this review) is hard to argue with. What’s easier to argue with are the macabre big swings the movie takes in its less successful third act.
Both thought provoking and patently absurd, Heretic lures us in with the promise of Hugh Grant chewing scenery. It keeps us there, though, with its tantalizing rollout of crackling music on vinyl playing through vintage speakers, rare books opened to just the right page, unexpected antique props and knickknacks- exhibits A, B, C, and so forth- dropped onto real-wood tables right on cue. Grant’s amusing eccentric improvisations amid the tightly scripted recitation of his presentation also help. Far from being the fresh-faced rom-com guy of yore, this is the actor in his true prime.
Heretic is a whole lot of people talking about appropriately heady things that people don’t talk about often enough. Yet, to be locked in a kind of haunted house with an evil Joseph Campbell (in the name of Joseph Smith, no less) is a new and impressively contained spin on what scares us. Heretic is the home invasion thriller turned inside out, existing fully in not only the tension of its premise, but its contained dialogue-heavy execution. Like a nice warm slice of blueberry pie, its aftertaste is satisfyingly tart.