Heretic: Hugh Grant Terrorizes Mormons

It is hard enough serving as a Mormon missionary in liberal Boulder, Colorado. Trey Parker and Matt Stone did not do them any favors with Book of Mormon either. However, they are in for a truly harrowing ordeal when they are invited into the home of a cultural relativist with a nefarious interest in comparative religions. Prepare yourself to root for the Mormons in director-screenwriters Scott Beck & Bryan Woods’ Heretic, which opens Friday in theaters.

Supposedly, Mr. Reed’s wife is in the kitchen baking a blueberry pie. That is why they allow him to lure them into his house. Otherwise, being alone with a man would have been against the LDS rules for missionaries. It turns out the Church has good reason for these rules. It is snowing outside, but the girls are smart enough to recognize when it is time to retreat. Unfortunately, Reed keeps his home inescapably secured with Rube Goldbergian time locks.

Against their will and better judgment, Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton sit through Reed’s Michel Foucault-ish lectures regarding the commonalities present in most monotheistic religions. Their lives are clearly in physical peril, but Reed also hopes to endanger their faith. However, Sister Paxton, the more assertive and worldly of the two girls, realizes the more they challenge Reed’s arguments, the more their odds for survival improve. He will show them some shocking sights designed to shake their faith, but they are more resilient than he assumes.

Fans of the A24 brand of horror might be taken aback by many aspects of Heretic. For starters, the nonbelieving not-so-humanist is an absolute, undeniable monster. As screenwriters, Beck & Woods have their criticisms of Mormonism, but they are keenly sympathetic towards the two Sisters. In fact, they show that many of the lazy cheap shots lobbed at Mormons are exactly that: lazy cheap shots.

Although co-stars Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East are no longer practicing Mormons, they both grew up in the LDS Church and still maintain personal ties, so they keenly understood the missionary experience. They were also not inclined to trash the Church. That kind of sympathy and authenticity really comes through in their gripping performances as Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton. There is nothing cartoonish about their portrayals. Right from the start, we believe they are young women already somewhat stepping out of their previously sheltered existences, facing someone sinister and manipulative, well beyond their experiences.

Hugh Grant is also shockingly frightening, oozing evil from every pore, as Reed. His fake charm is absolutely terrifying, but what really makes him unnerving is his contempt for the Sisters’ faith and his utter and complete certainty in his own intellectual superiority. (The glasses are a nice touch—they have a sort of malicious Clark Kent effect, so that viewers completely forget his classic rom-coms.)

This is a nail-bitingly tense cat-and-mouse thriller, but it is also smartly written and executed with a good deal of distinctive style. It represents a quantum leap-level improvement over Beck & Woods’ last horror feature, the middling Haunt. This is a suspenseful ride, but it also provides the kind of realistic representation a lot of Mormons have been yearning for. Highly recommended, Heretic opens this Friday (11/8) in theaters, including the LOOK Dine-In W57.