Two young Mormon women are on a mission to baptize converts in “Heretic.” Credit: Courtesy of TNS
One of the more terrifying scenarios a woman can conjure up is being trapped in a room with a man and forced to endure an endless barrage of philosophical mansplaining.
“Heretic,” the latest film from A24, removes this situation from its typical setting of an unfortunate first date at a coffee shop and pushes it to the extreme in a single-location horror thriller.
“Heretic” follows the fates of two young Mormon missionaries — played by Sophie Thatcher (“Yellowjackets”) and Chloe East (“The Fablemans”) — who knock on the wrong door and subsequently get ensnared in a psychological experiment conducted by the agnostic Mr. Reed, portrayed by the typically charming Hugh Grant (“Notting Hill,” “Love Actually”).
The first 30 minutes of “Heretic” are when it burns brightest. It’s fascinating to stick these three people with varying philosophical views in the same room and watch their perspectives shift — the goodie-two-shoes Sister Paxton (East), the more skeptical Sister Barnes (Thatcher) and the petrifyingly persuasive Mr. Reed.
The scenario of two young women trapped in the house of an elderly man already puts the stakes on a knife’s edge. And yet, typical expectations for this circumstance are subverted by Mr. Reed’s sadistically earnest focus on the dissection of not just Mormonism, but religious structures holistically.
Forcing these distinct characters together in one location produces one of the best-written sequences of the year.
The audience is simultaneously terrified for these women and weirdly reassured by the sheer confidence in Mr. Reed’s arguments. It’s like shaking up a soda can to the brink, then feeling the urge to pull the tab.
Unfortunately, “Heretic” loses steam as it begins to divert from its thought-provoking commentary on theological structures and morphs back into a typical horror movie.
The promise of the mentally stimulating first act is broken when “Heretic” insists on over-explaining Mr. Reed’s motivations and the many plot conveniences that stem from the film’s one-location structure.
Frustratingly, “Heretic” feels like it lost its trust in the audience, taking a massive step back thematically in order to cater to traditional Hollywood horror conventions; and even then, the jumpscares aren’t all that effective.
The most terrifying part of the film might be the image of Grant as an Oompa Loompa from 2023’s “Wonka” that stubbornly refuses to un-sear itself from a viewer’s mind every time they look at his face.
“Heretic” throws a lot of ideas at the screen with varying success and ultimately refuses to commit strongly enough to any of them.
Similar to A24’s recent romance-drama “We Live In Time,” “Heretic” feels as though the entertainment company is willing to trade the idiosyncrasies its prior films were known for in order to appeal to a broader audience.
In the end, all this ideological shift means is that plenty of audience members may leave “Heretic” without the regret of wasting their time or money, but very few will leave fully satiated with the potential the film so clearly had yet refused to capitalize on.
Rating: 2.5/5
