Heretic opens with two young Mormon missionaries talking about penises on a park bench. The light hearted opening is in stark contrast to the tension to come and serves as a fun introduction to two endearing characters. Sister Paxton (Chloe East) has been born and raised in the church, eager and enthusiastic she is desperate to land her first conversion. Sophie Thatcher's Sister Barnes is more experienced and more comfortable in the world at large. We spend some time getting to know them as they make their rounds, hearing about their hopes for a handsome husband and sadness at the way they shunned and considered "weird" by their peers. We are thoroughly on board with them by the time they encounter Hugh Grant's seemingly gregarious Mr Reed. He appears interested in their beliefs and impresses the girls with his religious knowledge but the conversation becomes more testy and they realise they can't leave Reed's house without playing his game.
To say Hugh Grant is having fun lately would be an understatement. Whether playing a sleazy reporter in The Gentleman, a caddish Lord in Dungeons and Dragons or a cantankerous Oompa Loompa in Wonka, he's been yucking it up and stealing scenes for years now. Here, he marries the awkward charm of his rom-com era with the vicious whit of his more recent turns and injects it with a surprising amount of menace. The resulting performance is as great as you would expect and absolutely crucial to the film. You see, while it veers closer to traditional horror towards the end, for most of its runtime Heretic is film of theological discussion, awkwardness and mounting tension. Even as the Sisters become uncomfortable and realise they may be in danger they are desperate to extract themselves without being impolite or breaking the social etiquette of their English host. On the surface Mr Reed is the teacher that thinks he's down with the kids who everyone can't actually stand but go along with anyway because he is too genial to deserve having his feelings hurt. On another level he is an insufferable blow hard, his observations obvious and his analogies trite. Underneath it all though, there is a steely control that gives the impression the girls are right to be afraid. It is impossible to imagine anyone else in the role.
It's to their massive credit that East and Thatcher aren't completely overshadowed by Grant's performance. Instead they play off it wonderfully, both likeable and distinct as they each react to Mr Reed's increasingly hostile rhetoric in their own way. The heart they imbue their characters with is a big reason Heretic doesn't default to the obvious religion bashing a lazier film would have relied on. In many ways the film is actually a reversal of the rational thinker running afoul of religious zealots horror trope, instead we have two religious believers trying to remain calm in the face of a non-believers fanatical views.
Heretic is a very talky film so it won't be for everybody but the dialogue is sharp and the pace well managed so it never sags. Is the final reveal a little underwhelming? Possibly, but it is in keeping with the rest of the film and it's hard to think of a better way it could have gone. After writing A Quiet Place and sci fi dinosaur movie 65, as well as directing a couple of decent horror movies themselves, writer/directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods have hit a career high point here and Hugh Grant is worth the admission money alone.
8 latter days out of 10 saints.
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