If the new horror film Heretic were just about the dark side of religion, it would be smart and entertaining, though not entirely original. After all, the horror genre has dissected this subject on screen for decades. What makes Heretic different is its chilling depiction of what can happen when we disregard our own boundaries for fear of offending others.
Written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (A Quiet Place), the film stars Hugh Grant as Mr. Reed, a reclusive Englishman who invites into his home two Mormon missionaries eager to spread the good word. Once inside, Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton soon find out Mr. Reed is keener on kidnapping them than converting to their religion. What follows is a genuinely frightening ninety minutes of the women trying to escape Mr. Reed’s labyrinthine dungeon and Mr. Reed trying to manipulate the women into surrendering to his eternal physical and psychological control. It’s ultimately a thought-provoking meditation on how willingly we let others tell us how to live and what to believe.
It’s raining when Barnes and Paxton arrive at Mr. Reed’s front door. He tells them to come inside, but the young women say no, explaining that their elders instructed them never to be alone in a room with a man. Mr. Reed says his wife is just inside, baking a blueberry pie. The women enter. After Mr. Reed offers to take their coats, he says, “The walls and ceilings have metal in them, I hope you don’t mind,” which couldn’t sound more ominous, but the ladies are too preoccupied with the coat-taking and making sure they’ve responded graciously to his nice gesture to take notice. Mr. Reed goes off to collect his wife, taking their coats with him. Moments later, he returns with an excuse that she’s not quite ready for visitors, but she’ll be out shortly. The women, instead of insisting on her company, or else they’ll have to leave, politely sit down. Mr. Reed has brought a tray of beverages with him, and it would be rude to turn them down.
By this point, it’s clear to the audience that something bad is going to happen. The film already exceeds others like it in the genre because we’re not screaming at Barnes and Paxton, “Get out of there, you idiots! What the hell are you thinking?” like one often does when watching a horror film. Instead, the way they’re behaving makes total sense to us since we know all too well what it’s like to say yes when every fiber in our beings is telling us to say no. We don’t want to come off as jerks. It would be super awkward if we left right now. What if we hurt his feelings?
Heretic succeeds in this way mostly because of good writing, in particular the clever dialogue, but also because of the actors’ performances. Grant, whose decadeslong filmography consists primarily of romantic comedies, such as Notting Hill and Love, Actually, is best known as a charmer. More recently, though, the wrinkled yet still handsome Grant has found a new, perhaps more affecting type as a grinning villain, with satisfying turns as what the Brits call a “wrong ‘un” in Paddington 2, The Gentlemen, and A Very English Scandal. The real standouts, however, are Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, who play Barnes and Paxton. Beck and Woods made a smart choice with the script that a lot of horror writers tend to overlook: they reserved the first 20 or so minutes of the film for solid character development so that by the time the two women arrive at Mr. Reed’s house, we care about what happens to them. What we learn about the characters during their private conversations about faith, love, and sex at the beginning of the film is subtly revisited throughout. Barnes is a star missionary in the church, but there’s doubt lurking beneath the surface, and Paxton is heartbreakingly naive, which is what makes her story arc all the more thrilling once we realize she’s more on to Mr. Reed than she’s been letting on.
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The most refreshing aspect of Heretic, which sets it apart from other religion-tinged horror movies, is that it doesn’t all add up to a heavy-handed indictment of religion. In fact, it’s very possible the filmmakers meant for it to communicate the opposite message, which is that there is value in choosing to believe in something bigger than us. The ending is ambiguous, so we can’t know for sure what exactly they intended the moral of the story to be. However, whatever the intended artistic message, one takeaway is something more people in our political discourse could stand to consider: We could all afford to be a little less horrified at the prospect of offending crazy people who clearly mean us harm.
Ben Appel is a writer living in New York City. His memoir, Cis White Gay: The Making of a Gender Heretic, is forthcoming. Find him on Twitter @benappel and at benappelwrites.com.
