‘We don’t talk about Taco Bell...’
Hollywood superstars usually find themselves in a horror film at the start of their career (Johnny Depp, Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Aniston) or at the end (Donald Pleasence, Gregory Peck, Max von Sydow). Hugh Grant is an actor most famous for numerous frothy romantic comedies but Father Time comes for us all eventually and the romcom’s loss is horror’s gain in this instance…
We begin with two Mormon missionaries trying in vain to win over converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a small American town. Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) is confident and assertive, while Sister Paxton (Chloe East) is more timid and childlike. Their last appointment of the day sees them calling on Mr Reed (Grant), a seemingly suave and welcoming English gentleman who offers the girls a slice of homemade blueberry pie baked by his wife. Things quickly go south when the two women realise there is no blueberry pie and there is no wife.
Directing duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods have both written for the A Quiet Place movies and have form in the horror arena having helmed 2019’s underrated horror attraction movie Haunt. 65, their jaunt into sci-fi which saw Adam Driver battling dinosaurs was less successful, so the jury was still out on the pair until the release of this movie. Heretic is by far and away their best film with Grant unsurprisingly excellent, but the dialogue and religious meditations are so compelling that the role of Mr Reed is surely any actor’s dream. That being said, Grant really is utterly captivating here. He performs a similar balancing act as Josh Hartnett in M. Night Shyamalan’s recent effort Trap – having to perform two very different sides of the same coin and doing both convincingly. He seems to enjoy tormenting Thatcher and East, both of whom are convincing, well-developed characters and Beck and Woods also stick the landing – an issue that has plagued many modern horror films in recent years.
Heretic is a stylish, thoughtful and often chilling film that looks stunning, deals with some big ideas and has moments of true horror. I loved it.
