Heretic review: Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, and Chloe East shine

Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, and Chloe East elevate the maze games of Heretic

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According to Hugh Grant, he didn’t have particular designs on playing charming, self-effacing romantic leads for so much of his career; it’s just that Four Weddings and a Funeral was a big hit early on, and the career followed accordingly. At a Q&A following a recent screening of Heretic, Grant noted that he’s always had an affinity for darker material, which he accesses readily as Heretic’s Mr. Reed, a seemingly – yes – charming and self-effacing man who invites two Mormon missionaries, Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) into his home for a chat, only to reveal – no! – darker intentions. Those intentions come to light after a series of winding dialogues and eventually monologues; between these scenes and Grant’s recent work as a Guy Ritchie repertory player, you may start to wonder if he harbors a specific desire to work with Quentin Tarantino, whose Pulp Fiction went against Funeral in the Best Picture race.

There are even qualities to Heretic that could be described as Tarantinoseque: The obvious pleasure it takes in setting up its characters with words and well-deployed pop-culture references, the slow-build tension that has become a hallmark of Tarantino’s later-period movies especially, and, yes, some eventual bursts of sudden violence. There are also elements of recent M. Night Shyamalan in the movie’s simplicity of concept and knottiness of character, in its exploration of faith tested and its willingness to have a mordant laugh or two on the way. The writer-director team of Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, who wrote the original Quiet Place and made the Halloween slasher Haunt, obviously have a love for a well-wrought bit of genre gimmickry.

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They also appear to love their characters, never moreso than when Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton are making small talk as they go about their rounds, following up on appointments to spread the good news of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Sister Paxton was born into the church, while Sister Barnes is a childhood convert, and the movie fine-tunes their personalities away from any expectations that they’ll represent fervent belief and questioning skepticism. Neither of them quite fills the latter role; instead, Sister Paxton, the lifer, is the more blasé believer, more accustomed to finding innocuous little workarounds for bits and pieces of Mormonism, and Sister Barnes, the convert, is more serious-minded, wanting to supply thoughtful but exacting answers to the questions they’re supposed to field about their faith. Both actresses are fresh from memorable supporting roles: East played the Christian girl besotted with a Spielberg substitute in The Fabelmans, while Thatcher is carving out a scream-queen career, on the basis of her work in the TV show Yellowjackets and the Stephen King adaptation The Boogeyman (also written by Beck and Woods). Both fulfill their promise here: East plays Sister Paxton as both more childish and more practical, while Thatcher hints at genuine, even touching dedication beneath her (family’s) chosen religion.

They’re a formidable match against Mr. Reed, who keeps chatting the girls into darker corners, no matter how sharply suspicious they become of his promises that his wife is in the next room with a blueberry pie in the oven. Reed’s cozy house becomes a twisty maze with a pontificating MC presiding, and Grant isn’t just playing a smooth-talking villain; he gives an object lesson in how the smoothness of that talk may be his greatest motivator and justification, a college lecturer prowling for extra-credit study sessions. His bullshit sessions about religion, philosophy, and board games may be pompous, but they’re also as irresistible in the moment as colorful late-night dorm-room musings (if not necessarily a proper classroom in the harsh light of day).

Why, then, does Heretic itself ultimately feel like a clever screenwriter exercise enlivened by terrific performances? That’s not nothing; it is, in fact, a fine time at the movies, with some clever camera tricks courtesy of Chung-hoon Chung, longtime cinematographer of Park Chan-wook. Then again, bringing up Park Chan-wook doesn’t do Heretic any favors, because his genre movies like Decision to Leave, Thirst, or Stoker conceal broader feelings of loss, anguish, or perversity. Heretic has intimations of these things while never quite escaping its own well-designed obstacle course. Mr. Reed’s musings are shallow, and the movie seems to understand this. What Woods and Beck lack is something more ineffable: The feeling that the tricks and traps – physical and conversational – have a greater thematic design than the gnarly, twisty sets. For all of its meticulous craft, much of the actual story in Heretic feels spun out on the fly, which keeps it both unpredictable and a little remote, like a bravura jam session trying to somehow pass as a four-minute pop song. There’s something rattling around, somewhere in Heretic, dealing with the power and limitations of belief, a movie that aspires to the deviousness of something like Barbarian, to which its setting bears the mildest of superficial resemblance. At some point, it escapes into the night without much trace.

Director: Scott Beck and Bryan Woods
Writer: Scott Beck and Bryan Woods
Starring: Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East, Topher Grace
Release date: November 8, 2024

Jesse Hassenger is associate movies editor at Paste. He also writes about movies and other pop-culture stuff for a bunch of outlets including A.V. Club, GQ, Decider, the Daily Beast, and SportsAlcohol.com, where offerings include an informal podcast. He also co-hosts the New Flesh, a podcast about horror movies, and wastes time on Twitter under the handle @rockmarooned.

Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, and Chloe East elevate the maze games of Heretic