Original caricature by Jeff York of Hugh Grant in HERETIC (copyright 2024)
During the press junket for the fantasy film WONKA last holiday season, Hugh Grant said that he had entered the “freak-show period” of his career, playing baddies, psychopaths, weirdos, perverts, and Oompa Loompas. Well, more power to him, I say, since he’s doing some of the best work of his storied career. The period started with his sly turn in 2016 as the affable husband enabling the questionable singing talents of FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS, followed by his sleazy reporter in THE GENTLEMEN, various villains in PADDINGTON 2, A VERY ENGLISH SCANDAL, and THE UNDOING, not to mention his scene-stealing turn opposite Timothée Chalamet’s young Willy Wonka. Now, Grant is starring in the new horror film HERETIC and he’s terrific once again, this time playing a truly creepy and cunning psychopath out to torment two Mormon missionaries.
Those missionaries are teens Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East), and they don’t exactly fit the religious girl profile. For starters, when we first meet them, they are discussing porn, dating, and raising questions about their faith. Barnes is the more cynical and experienced one, but Barnes isn’t as pure as she looks. She introduces the topic of adult films into their conversation and takes a rigorous approach in her intellectual breakdown of them much to the amusement of her colleague. Soon enough though, they’re off on their conversion rounds, and that includes biking to an isolated cottage out in the country just as a nasty storm starts to roll in.
The cottage’s owner is Mr. Reed (Grant), a seemingly timid Englishman, who has requested their visit with an expressed interest in the Mormon Church. When they show up on his doorstep, he invites both Barnes and Paxton to leave their bikes locked by the gate and enter his abode for a deep conversation and some homemade blueberry pie, courtesy of his wife. Reed turns out to know quite a lot about various religions and even challenges the girls on both their knowledge of the Mormons as well as the commonalities of all theologies. As his probing becomes more pointed, his tone starts to turn menacing. That makes the girls uncomfortable, so they start to try and think of just how to extradite themselves from Reed’s home. We too in the audience are wondering just what is going on here, with no Mrs. Reed to be seen and plenty of creaks in the house to give the Amityville Horror a run for terrifying real estate.
Suffice it to say, the girls’ fears go from bad to worse as Reed turns out to be a diabolical trickster, a single man full of lies and games, and their game of cat and mouse soon turns violent. HERETIC becomes a battle of survival, but also one of understanding faith, power, and who gets to play God. Now, usually in such films, the heroines are all too easily victimized, but both Barnes and Paxton are sharp and capable. Indeed, one of the better parts of the movie is how savvy they are, no easy pushovers.
Thatcher and East give excellent, nuanced portrayals, expertly turning from suspicious girls to horrified hostages to fighters. Writer/directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods dabble with plenty of horror tropes – haunted houses and jump scares, to name two – but they never cheapen such frights. The pair who also wrote A QUIET PLACE even managed to inject a thoughtful dissertation about religion into the mix without it ever becoming windy or dull. The third act may go a bit too far with some of its shocks and gross-outs, but the whole thing works very well, manipulating its audience with skill and wit from start to end.
Grant is stunning. Without changing his looks outside of a pair of eyeglasses, he becomes something truly unseemly and unnerving in this film. He handles a lot of dialogue too, making it all cunning and threatening. Heck, his Mr. Reed could be a cousin of the better Bond villains or even Hannibal Lecter. Grant is so good that he merits serious consideration for Best Actor accolades during this year’s awards season.
HERETIC is spooky, a bit kooky, and supremely confident in its fearmongering. It gives us two strong heroines and a truly memorable baddie. Who knows? You might not look at blueberry pie quite the same after this film, and that’s the aftertaste of this very effective frightener.
