Heretic (2024 | USA | 110 minutes | Scott Beck, Bryan Woods)

Stop me if you’ve seen this movie before: some well-meaning, if a bit naive, young people knock on a stranger’s door and are invited inside and some neighborly hospitality quickly becomes terror. Such is the case when two young Mormon church members, Sister Paxton (Chloe East) and Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) visit the home of Mr. Reed (a diabolical Hugh Grant) with the hope of recruiting the reclusive man into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He did put in a request for more information from the Church. It just so happens that the weather is terrible and Mrs. Reed has a blueberry pie in the oven.

Or does she?

For the first few minutes, everything seems perfectly fine. Mr. Reed has read the Book of Mormon and appears to be an interested prospect. While Sister Paxton and Sister Barnes have expressed their discomfort of being alone with a man, Mr. Reed insists Mrs. Reed will be along any moment with the blueberry pie. Can’t they just smell it?

When it becomes clear that things are going sideways and the two young ladies are not going to get to just walk out the front door (did Mr. Reed really say that his door is on a timer and no one can leave – or enter – until morning?), the movie picks up steam and doesn’t really relent until it’s over.

What really makes Mr. Reed such a compelling villain is that he uses his knowledge of theology in general and Mormonism in particular as a means of torturing Sisters Barnes and Paxton, teasing them with ideas of devotion and free will as a mechanism for release. Sure, sometimes he sounds like someone who smoked way too much weed and read way too much Heidegger in college and never really stopped, but Hugh Grant plays him with such delicious malevolence that it’s easy to get sucked into his terror. It’s an intellectually satisfying performance because the viewer is invited to try to think their way through the traps he lays for his petrified guests in real time. This is probably my favorite performance he’s ever given.

Though I was largely unfamiliar with their work, Chloe East and Sophie Thatcher are also quite excellent, with Sister Barnes the slightly less naive one. The opening scene where they’re discussing a pornographic scene is hilarious and establishes their level of sophistication before they arrive at the Reed manor.

I should pause to note that the old, leaky, creepy house Mr. Reed lives in is its own character central to the film. It reminded me of the Bates Motel with its macabre features the proprietor installed and it gives the real sense of claustrophobia. Midway through the film I had the epiphany that it’s like Psycho with Mormons. That should be the tagline.

So much of the film simply works. The acting is excellent, as is the pacing, the cinematography, direction, the set design, and even the costumes. My rule of instinctively distrusting people in double-bridged glasses continues to serve me well.

I found Heretic to be equally intellectually stimulating and deeply disturbing. Take that with a grain of sand because I’m merely a genre film tourist (on a good day) unlike other SunBreak staffers, but for me, the heebie-jeebies were real.

__________________________________________________________________

Heretic opens in theaters today, November 7.