Do you have a moment to hear about the word of the Lord?
By Amanda Musto
When you’re Mormon, going door to door to spread the word of the Lord, usually you don’t go in with the expectation of being kidnapped and having to fight for your life, but guess that’s a risk when you run into a heretic.
When I first saw the Heretic trailer back in September before watching Terrifier 3, I added it to my future movie watchlist right away. All I was able to gather from the trailer was that two Mormon girls visit a home to spread the word of the Lord and somehow get trapped by the homeowner and are made to play mind games related to their beliefs on religion to try and escape. It seemed like an interesting concept and even though it was advertised as a horror film, it gave the vibes of a psychological thriller more, which drew me in. Between the cool storyline and the movie being released by A24, I figured it would be a great movie. Unfortunately, A24 did not do their best with this film.
The acting is truly what saved this movie from being a complete failure, with Hugh Grant absolutely nailing the role of Mr. Reed, the crazed heretic. With Grant’s filmography being mainly filled with romantic comedies, it was a wicked and refreshing change of pace to see him in the role of the evil antagonist. Throughout the film, Grant made the viewer feel so uncomfortable, as if the audience were the ones he was played mind games with and he was able to portray such an eerie vibe, even while still being very charming. Of course, by the very end, he lost his charm and was revealed as a psychopath that likes to kidnap women to control them.
Chloe East who played Sister Paxton and Sophie Thatcher who played Sister Barnes were also wonderful in their roles as the young Mormon missionaries. Being a young woman helped me feel their fear of being alone with Mr. Reed and being asked uncomfortable questions even more. The way Chloe and Sophie’s characters spoke about the Lord and their church with so much devotion behind it, made you forget that they are just actors and not actual missionaries.
Throughout the movie, the girls had to do their best to challenge Mr. Reed to escape the maze of his home. When the girls sat with Reed and listened to how he rambled on about Monopoly ripping off The Landlord’s Game and then started to compare religions to the games, you realized how smart these girls were. To sit there scared about being trapped, but to know that if you show your fear, it can make things much worse, so instead they listened and tried to agree with his points and told him that they would take everything he said into consideration when they think about their own beliefs.
When he wrote belief and disbelief on the front of two doors and told them to pick one so they could leave, they used their smarts to challenge him and decided to tell him that no matter what they stick to their beliefs and chose that as the correct door to leave from. They claimed that the belief would lead them correctly, which sadly didn’t matter anyway, both doors led to a basement under his house that he would then trap them in.
After more bored conversation in the basement, a woman in brought in and Mr. Reed makes an announcement to the girls that the woman was a prophet and would eat a poisoned pie, die, and then come back to life to prove the Lord’s work. After the woman dies, all the focus is on the girls trying to think of a plan to escape, before it shifts back to the woman somehow alive again and that she was right behind the girls. It was a lot of choppy back and forth that threw off the audience.
By this point, some suspense had been built up, but the movie moved too slowly. While many psychological thrillers move slower, this film put me to sleep at some points due to most of the story being a lot of conversation between Mr. Reed and the girls. The biggest issue with that was how rushed the rest of the movie was.
The movie started to throw all the action in at once and Sister Barnes’ throat was sliced by Mr. Reed, he waited for her to be brought back to life by the Lord because he felt that was part of religion, realized she wouldn’t and left Sister Paxton alone in the basement for a little while. Then before you know it, he comes back, Sister Paxton tells him she figured out that the woman must have been two women and there’s a hidden door in the floor.
The rest of the film consisted of the same rushed feeling, Sister Paxton went through the door in the floor, the whole basement maze and found the room Mr. Reed had full of women in cages that he used as sacrifices to try and test religious theories from all different religions. Paxton and Reed argued, Reed explained how he found the number one religion and that it is just control, and then was stabbed by Paxton before she ran back through the maze and into the basement. Reed showed up again, stabbed Sister Paxton and right before he killed her, Sister Barnes somehow killed him with a board of nails to the face before she fell to the floor and died. Sister Paxton escaped the house and sat in the grass while she looked at the butterfly on her hand before it disappeared, and the screen faded to black.
All in all, the movie wasn’t a complete failure, and I would still give it a 3.75/5 rating due to the interesting storyline and great acting, but the slow moving to a rushed, not great ending made it lose the points. I do hope this leads to more horror/thriller films with Hugh Grant starring in them, because it would be a total loss if this is the only one.
