Heretic - free to all subscribers
Ain't Them Bodies Latter-Day Saints
Heretic, originally scheduled for Nov. 15, was released theatrically Nov. 8. As a mea culpa for a late review, we offer this free to all subscribers, both regular and premium. Another movie, the horror-romance Your Monster, goes out as usual Thursday morning.
A pair of fresh-faced Mormon missionaries — Sister Payton (Chloe East) and Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) — brave damp and chilly weather in their earnest belief that knocking on doors and preaching to people is good for all the souls involved. That they’re pretty young women pestering total strangers who have the literal home advantage does not appear to have occurred to them ... or perhaps it did and the elders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints assured them God looks after the faithful and that they should their trust in Him.
And so it passes they present themselves at the home of one Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant), who invites them in and — apparently aware of the dictum that Mormon women should never be in the company of a man who is not a relative unless his spouse is also present — assures them his wife is in the kitchen baking a blueberry pie. Surely they’ve noticed the mouth-watering aroma? That they quickly realize it comes from a scented candle might have sent more worldly girls to the door posthaste. But they’re resolute in the belief it’s their duty to save Mr. Reed’s soul. As for that soul: It’s no spoiler to say Reed is not the benevolent, avuncular fellow he appears to be, and that getting out of his handsomely appointed house filled with artifacts spanning the religious spectrum will be nowhere as easy as it was to get in.
Hugh Grant as Mr. Reed, with Chloe East as Sister Payton and Sophie Thatcher as Sister Barnes in Heretic
Grant’s Reed — here a far cry from the cuties he played in his youth, when his calling card was a pretty face paired with the sort of dithering that charms the bejesus out of susceptible Americans — bloviates eloquently. His apparently off-the-cuff litany about the contradictions and hypocrisies promulgated both by the truly religious and the opportunists and hucksters who wrap their hidden agendas in a veil of piety — one supposedly driven by desperate concern that the unearthly essence of every person on this green planet be granted entry to some manner of eternal bliss — is pitch perfect. Reed’s home is full of books, including The Book of Mormon, as proof he’s done his homework and is presumably armored against the educated faithful: He’s read their books and everyone else’s, too.
It’s overkill, if you will, when aimed at a pair of sheltered young women who haven’t seen enough to doubt scripture, and unworldly enough that they don’t realize a man who will lie about scent of blueberry pie might be lying about things of greater significance. But subtlety is not, of course, the tool of the zealous. And subtle is not the word to describe the trap-filled maze of miasmas into which he sends Payton and Barnes against their will. Think the board game Mouse Trap. And good luck, girls.
Sophie Thatcher as Sister Barnes in Heretic
I can’t say Heretic’s narrative trajectory was hugely suspenseful — I mean, Reed lives in a huge, near-gothic house filled with religious paraphernalia that he shares with a no-show wife whose existence must be taken on faith.... It fairly screams Bates Motel with a generous dollop of the psychedelic soul band The Undisputed Truth’s 1971 song “Smiling Faces Sometimes,” the seductive chorus of which laments “they don’t tell the truth.”
But kudos to writer-directors Scott Beck and Ryan Woods for taking house-of-horror tropes and infusing them with a credible sense of menace. Their credits include 2018’s A Quiet Place (co-written with director John Krasinski), an equally a slow burn that doesn’t disappoint once it kicks into gear. And while Heretic’s set-up may be familiar the way the scenario plays out is both impressively brutal, multilayered and, I must confess, rather haunting. I don’t want missionaries and religious proselytizers at my door, but I’m just fine with not answering.
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