Heretic (2024) Review

Heretic (2024)
Director: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods
Screenwriters: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods
Starring: Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East, Topher Grace, Elle Young

Horror films about religion and theology, ordinarily, though not exclusively, fall into two categories: they are either in the folk horror camp, with people dancing around fires with their clothes off, or they’re possession stories, with people shouting at floating contortionists with a crucifix in hand. Heretic decides to take neither route, going in for a more thriller-like narrative of combatting beliefs where the very concept of faith is put to the test.

Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East play two Mormon sisters who call upon Hugh Grant’s Mr Reed. The more they discuss, the more Sisters Barnes and Paxter come to believe that Mr Reed has more sinister intentions than simple theological debate. The tests that Reed puts the Sisters through will challenge their beliefs and their lives.

The biggest reason to watch Heretic is Hugh Grant. This is one of Grant’s best performances of a career filled with iconic and acclaimed portrayals. Many actors have an ability to fall into character and make themselves unrecognisable, but Grant is not of that kind; he could be in the greatest disguise possible, but a single step made, a single syllable uttered, and everyone would know it was the superstar A-lister Hugh Grant. Heretic turns this to its advantage, deliberately casting Grant against type to turn his bumbling British charms and reputation as a loveable buffoon into direct cynicism, malevolence, and darkness behind the eyes. His portrayal is of such a high quality that a BAFTA nomination wouldn’t be unsurprising, and the genre awards will no doubt consider this one of the most important lead performances of 2024.

Heretic takes the time to build up slowly, using a dialogue-heavy script to offer lots of ideas and concepts and theories, only half of which are answered. That’s fine. Some films need to leave questions hanging. This choice certainly takes Heretic a step away from the typically jump-scare laden trap and/or exorcism films of decades past. There’s an argument to be made that, as a result of all this dialogue, the story might work just as well, if not better, on the page or even the stage, than it does on film. Filmic techniques are pushed to the bottom of the list of this film’s priorities, Heretic reverting to a simplistic presentation of the characters’ back-and-forth rather than a cinematic expression of these ideas. Still, writer-director duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (co-writers behind A Quiet Place, 2018) use this to their advantage, keeping everything tight and contained and rarely going outside of the key action of the narrative. Heretic is claustrophobic, and the lack of anything fancy adds to this sensation.

There is always a danger, when crafting a film based on a series of dialogue-heavy ideas, that the film will become overly complicated in its thinking, and therefore trip itself up. It might try to be overly clever, but find that its ambition outweighs its talent. For ninety percent of Heretic, it is a very interesting dark thriller with an incredible performance from Hugh Grant and two great runs from Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East. Unfortunately, final choices on how to bring everything to a close and present the conclusions to the filmmakers’ theological arguments stunt the film. It works, technically, and what the filmmakers have gone for is well made, but these conclusions make the overall story far less interesting than it potentially could have been in retrospect.

Heretic is an interesting film overall. For the most part, it is a very good film. It has an interesting premise, a trio of wonderful performances at its centre, and it takes itself (and its audience) seriously. It somewhat stumbles at the final hurdle, but not enough to completely derail a film that bravely tries to be intelligent. If only more films had the belief and faith to try in the same way that Heretic does.

Score: 18/24

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