Review of HERETIC: Ruminations on Religion

December 5, 2024

Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) were missionaries from the Church of the Latter Day Saints. One day, they knocked on the door of Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant), who wanted to learn more about their religion. It began to rain, so Mr. Reed invited them to come in. As per their rules, they said they can only enter when there is another female in the house. Reed assured them that his wife was inside, baking blueberry pie.

Even as early as this point where nothing has really happened, there was already a feeling of foreboding in the air. We knew that these two young women should not really enter the house. However, the weather was bad, and Reed was being very friendly and charming, and he did say that his wife with in the house with him. When girls did accept to enter the house, right off, we immediately felt that they had made the worst decision of their lives. 

After that suspenseful buildup of impending danger in the first act, the meat of Scott Beck and Bryan Woods' film was laid out in the second act. Reed turned up the level of tension further by lecturing them about "Iterations" -- how pop songs (like "The Air That I Breathe" by the Hollies) or board games (like "The Landlord's Game" by Elizabeth Magie) were overtaken in popularity by subsequent products which were only copies of these originals. 

Everything only made sense when he made a further connection by using these iterations as a metaphor to the world's biggest religions, before further making a connection to them as agents who need to go house to house to promote a much smaller religion, like Mormonism, which is also yet another copy of the bigger religions. Reed even went further to enumerate figures in other religions all over the world who shared the same story as Jesus Christ

Reed wanted to subject the missionaries to an experiment where they can conclude for themselves what the main purpose of organized religion was. Once the girls decided to enter a door into the unknown, this was the point when the movie went from psychological thriller to full on horror mode. This was also the point when the movie began to lose my interest. I was actually hooked when they were just talking, than when there was already bloodshed.

Casting Hugh Grant as Reed was a stroke of genius. He had to project an innocuous image that was beyond suspicion. He should be able to make even the most cautious of young women feel safe to engage in his philosophical conversations.  Who knew that the actor we knew best for his romantic comedies during his heyday in the 1990s can also convincingly portray a sick sinister character?  A nomination for acting will not be surprising. 6/10.