Heretic (2024)
8/10
Why do we believe what we believe? That’s the central question that drives Heretic, a psychological horror film in which ideas take centre stage—specifically, debates over religion and how people defend their respective faiths. In a bravura performance, Hugh Grant exploits his familiar screen persona as the endearing, vulnerable romantic lead to more sinister purpose. Despite weaknesses in the final act, Heretic is worth watching for Grant’s performance alone, backed by an intelligent script from co-writers and directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods.
Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) are young Mormon missionaries arriving at the house of Mr. Reed (Grant), who had expressed interest in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Church policy states female missionaries can only enter if another is woman present, but Reed assures them his wife is in the next room cooking blueberry pie. Reed, who has an encyclopedic knowledge of different religions, engages them in debate and presses them to justify their beliefs. The girls keep asking to see his wife, who remains unseen. A storm is brewing outside. Soon it becomes apparent they won't be able to leave…
Early on the film sets up an interesting dynamic between the two missionaries, with Paxton’s appearing more firm in her Mormon beliefs while Barnes shows increasing doubt. A group of girls on the street bully them, making fun of Mormons for supposedly wearing “magic underwear”. This scene reminds us of the difficulties of being a missionary, attempting to convert others and facing ridicule. It makes Reed seem all the more appealing to Barnes and Paxton when he appears to express sincere interest in their church—encouraging them to overlook warning signs such as the absence of Reed’s purported wife.
His name, Reed, is appropriate since it quickly becomes clear this man reads a lot, displaying his heavily annotated copy of the Book of Mormon. Heartened at first by his interest in their religion, the girls are unprepared when Reed asks pointed questions about topics like polygamy. He points out that Mormons practiced polygamy in the 19th century until it became clear that the United States government would not admit Utah into the union if polygamy was still practiced. Church president Wilford Woodruff subsequently issued the 1890 Manifesto, which banned new polygamous marriages under the authority of divine revelation.
When the girls begin to suspect Reed does not in fact have a wife, they try to leave, only to find the front door locked. Their host presses on, pointing out the similarities between the story of Jesus Christ and previous religious figures such as Horus and Krishna who shared various traits with Christ, such as being born to a virgin, walking on water, resurrection, etc.
In one of the movie’s more amusing scenes, Reed compares the three major Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—to the board game Monopoly, which was nearly identical to a previous game called The Landlord’s Game. He plays “The Air That I Breathe” by The Hollies, noting that the band sued Radiohead for plagiarism with their song “Creep”. Radiohead in turn sued Lana Del Ray for plagiarizing “Creep” with her song “Get Free”. Like Monopoly, like these songs, Reed says, each religion is merely a new “iteration” of a previous belief system. To the trapped girls, he promises he can reveal to them the one true religion.
Heretic is an absorbing film thanks to strong performances by the main trio of Grant, Thatcher, and East, and the undeniably compelling questions Reed asks. Its tagline, “Question everything”, sums up the attitude Reed seeks to inculcate in the two young missionaries. A similar spirit has characterized revolutionaries throughout history who challenged all established institutions, including religion. Leaders of the French Revolution sought to justify all beliefs before the court of reason. Karl Marx called for a “ruthless criticism of all that exists”. Questioning everything is the very basis of philosophy, going back to Socrates. Reed’s fault lies in his method and what he hopes to accomplish through his criticism.
Spoilers follow.
Reed offers Barnes and Paxton a choice of two doors to exit his house: one if they believe in God, the other if they do not. The girls enter the door marked “Belief” only to discover that both doors lead to the same dungeon. With the two trapped down there, Reed presents a “prophet”: a decrepit woman who eats poisoned blueberry pie and dies, then appears to be resurrected and describes the afterlife.
Long story short: Paxton correctly deduces that while she and Barnes were distracted, a second woman moved the prophet’s corpse and took her place. In the final act, Paxton uncovers a series of chambers full of emaciated women that Reed has held captive. This is perhaps the weakest part of the film, as it leads the viewer to wonder about the logistics of Reed imprisoning them and what his goal was this whole time, outside of proving his point to a couple of Mormon missionaries.
Here Reed reveals what he claims to be the one true religion. “Religion,” he says, “is just a system of control.” His conclusion is by no means original. Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger famously said, “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” Marx more sympathetically called religion “the opium of the people… the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of our soulless conditions.”
Describing religion merely as a “system of control”, however, feels a tad reductive. No doubt secular rulers throughout history have used religion as a system of social control. But the origins of religion lie in the earliest stages of human development and our basic desire to understand the world. In the absence of modern science, humans personified the forces of nature as gods, laying the foundation for polytheistic religions. Later monotheistic religions still sought to answer the most basic questions: the origins, meaning and nature of the universe and our existence.
A full theological analysis is outside the scope of this review, but I appreciated Heretic for raising these questions. Filmmaking that compels the viewer to question everything they know is unfortunately rare in Hollywood. Despite its ruthless criticism of religion, Heretic suggests the existence of an afterlife at least, based on the appearance of the butterfly in its final scene. This is an engaging film that prompts its audience to think, which in itself warrants a recommendation.