Heretic review: A prescient film with riveting performances neutered by an underbaked final act

Like the ephemeral blueberry pie at the center of Heretic, politics are often baked directly into the very DNA of the horror genre. It's no surprise, then, that 2024 has been rife with timely films addressing everything from bodily autonomy to religion. A24's latest release feels particularly timely—the story of a man who manipulates people under the guise of religion—it's just too bad that the movie's third act crumbles, revealing its underbaked center.

Heretic is primarily a single-location horror movie anchored by three riveting performances from stars Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, and Chloe East. East and Thatcher play Mormon missionaries Sister Paxton and Sister Barnes, who aim to recruit potentially interested parties to the church. Enter Grant's character, the enigmatic Mr. Reed, who lives in a house that would also function equally well as an escape room. As shown in the trailer, Mr. Reed traps Paxton and Barnes inside his home after tricking them and revealing that he doesn't intend to let them leave until they play his twisted game.

The first half of the film is a phenomenal, suspenseful psychological thriller. All three actors are excellent, though Grant shines as the weirdly charming yet deeply calculating Mr. Reed. I fear many women have likely been in a situation akin to what the sisters experience here, with a man who firmly believes he's smarter than them going to great lengths to over-explain his perspective, ironically attempting to make one agree that his beliefs are the "correct" ones.

Heretic wants you to think it's going to be a clever film with Mr. Reed as an almost Jigsaw-adjacent antagonist with a plethora of puzzles and twisted games that the missionaries must traverse to survive. Unfortunately, the film doesn't play with its most compelling concept enough. Once the real horror begins, the surprises become less shocking and more predictable. When you start hearing phrases like "simulation theory," it's hard not to roll your eyes and wonder what happened to the first half's cleverness.

For all of its faults, I still found Heretic engrossing. The acting and directing worked in tandem to create a taut and unnerving thriller, but one that I don't think would have been as successful if it weren't for Grant's sinister on-screen presence and the equally compelling fortitude displayed by Thatcher and East.

It's when you start to consider the film's religious dogma that the script falls apart. There's a certain logic working throughout the movie that feels inconsistent with where the story ends up. It's both predictable and simplistic. Ambiguity is often a throughline in religious horror to avoid alienating the audience, and that usually ends up being to the filmmaker's detriment, especially here.

Heretic gets so tangled up in its desire to play both sides of the fence that what results is a story that wants to make a genuinely compelling argument about religion and coercive control and instead settles into something toothless by comparison.

Heretic is now playing in theaters nationwide.