In new horror movie Heretic, the terror begins with the promise of a home-cooked blueberry pie. The pie is just one of the ways in which the villain of the piece, Mr. Reed (a superbly sinister Hugh Grant) lures two Mormon missionaries into his spiraling nightmare of a home. The pie — or rather, the lack of one — is the first indication Sister Barnes (Yellowjackets’ Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) have that they’re in danger. Blueberry pie appears again and again throughout.
‘Heretic’ Is a Delicious Spiral Into a Hell of Hugh Grant’s Making
Hugh Grant is perfectly cast as a theologian hellbent on teaching two Mormon missionaries some religious lessons. (A24)
That pie is just one of several seemingly innocuous items used to terrifying effect in Heretic. There’s a watering can. The key to a bike lock. A scented candle. A record player. A letter opener. A box of matches. Not one but four different editions of Monopoly (yes, the board game). These are the objects that raise the stakes in Heretic, a story that believably centers a homely Englishman in a cozy cardigan as its most malevolent presence. The film also consistently uses the good manners and polite vernaculars of its three central characters to fray nerves and raise tension. It is a masterful and refreshing way to reinvent the horror house trope.
Mr. Reed’s reasons for luring the missionaries into his home aren’t immediately clear. His pretense that he wishes to learn more about the Church of the Latter Day Saints lasts only minutes and, sensing something is amiss, the women make a very sensible attempt at escape that proves fruitless. (One of the engaging things about Heretic is that the women at the center of it consistently make the best decisions available to them, unlike so many horror protagonists.)
Before long, once he has Barnes and Paxton captured, Reed does his darnedest to persuade the women that Jesus is a mere “echo of something real” that existed eons before the birth of Christ. (This section is so well done, it might have some viewers running home and checking the foundations of their own faith.) This all slowly escalates until Reed chillingly forces Barnes and Paxton to choose between two doors that may or may not lead to an exit from his home: one is marked “belief,” the other “disbelief.” What happens to them after that … I’d rather not spoil the experience.
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What I will say is that one of Heretic’s greatest successes is the way it permits its central characters to do spiritual battle. Mr. Reed is a theologian who desperately wants to take two sheltered missionaries down a peg or two. He — and the audience — is not expecting it when the young, seemingly naive women turn out to be worthy intellectual adversaries. Of course, the greatest (and darkest) surprises of all come once everyone reaches the lowest point of the house. The camera’s brief nod to an illustration of Dante’s Inferno is no accident.
Heretic is the kind of perfect storm that doesn’t come along often enough in the horror genre. It benefits from excellent casting (Grant is a revelation), beautiful but discombobulating direction and a brilliantly cerebral undercurrent that runs throughout. But it doesn’t skimp on the things horror fans expect from their genre either: grotesque imagery, out-of-left-field shocks, red herrings and, yes, a decent amount of bloodletting.
Horror has been guilty for many years of taking Christian concepts and boiling them down to their most simplistic tenets. It’s all too easy to pit evil against good, demon against holy person and have God (or Satan — thanks, Hereditary!) win out in the end. What Heretic does is infinitely more complex and thought-provoking. And that’s a more delicious experience than gobbling down any number of blueberry pies.
‘Heretic’ opens nationwide on Nov. 8, 2024.
