"Heretic" boasts a slyly funny bad-guy performance from Hugh Grant

Heretic (2024)

Religious faith is supposed to keep believers safe from the horrors of the world. Also, opening your door to a canvasser is never a wise decision. Both ideas get turned on their head in "Heretic," a deviously smart and ruminative cat-and-mouse chamber piece with a theological horror bent. Writer-directing team Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (who made their debut with 2019’s criminally underseen Halloween gem "Haunt") begin with a doozy of a scenario, like a cautionary fairy tale that should be told in The Book of Mormon (the scripture, not the irreverent Broadway show). Tension is milked for all it’s worth out of an iconoclastic debate over forever-baking pie with a politely sinister yet slyly funny Hugh Grant.

Mormon missionaries Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) make their way through Colorado in hopes of gaining new members at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Last on their list is Mr. Reed (Grant), an English gentleman who warmly greets the young women and invites them in out of the rain as a storm brews outside. They keep reiterating that they would need Mrs. Reed to be in the room, but she seems to be too preoccupied in the kitchen baking a blueberry pie. Mr. Reed is charming and inviting at first, but as Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton try converting him, he has other plans, like trapping them and testing their faith while determining the “one true religion.”

An about-face from the filmmakers’ first script ("A Quiet Place"), "Heretic" is talky but always tense, propelled by a three-person conversation. Beck and Woods take their viewers to church without being preachy to the viewer, but it’s up to them to make it all visually interesting, which they do manage with clockwork precision, dread, and masterful cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung’s elegant, dynamic camerawork. There’s also no film without Phil Messina’s production design, particularly the labyrinthine design of Mr. Reed’s home, which Chung pulls back from at one point in a dazzling overhead shot as if it were a maze. 

Making the effortless switch from devilishly lovable leading man to an outright devil, Hugh Grant brings a false sense of security as Mr. Reed. Chilling yet still charismatic and a little cheeky, Grant relishes playing a chatty, beguiling, and persuasive puppet master. Somehow, Mr. Reed is never just a cardboard bad guy, but a religion debunker who can make a long-winded Monopoly comparison, bring up fast food in context, and put on a Jar Jar Binks impression. Read the full review at GuyAtTheMovies.com

Grade: B +

A24 released "Heretic" (111 min.) in theaters on November 8, 2024.