FF '26: The Heretiks
The Heretiks takes place on a brisk, Midwestern Halloween night. College student Ada (Josie Juliette Wert) returns home after things didn’t work out as planned, and gets saddled with taking her little sister, Mabel (Ava Mae Seidensticker) and her best friend, Wesley (Luke Speakman), trick or treating. Being too cool for her younger sister, Ada stays back at a party leaving Mabel and Wesley to continue onward on their own. Soon after, they stumble into a coven of witches who see the young girl as their yearly sacrifice. Together with Cai (Kimberly Epstein), an ex-member of the coven, they must defend themselves and stop Mabel from falling into the coven’s hands.
A witchy, coming-of-age horror action movie by director Gregg Bishop. If all of that sounds like a lot, here’s a better way to understand it: Think of it as a Disney Channel family action movie with all the gore and camp stylings of telling a scary story to your friends. What sounds like it should be an absolute mess finds a really good groove early on and keeps that same vibe going. This low budget horror flick uses everything it has to its advantage and really makes that dollar stretch. The special effects are used sparingly but to great effect, while also keeping the frantic pace going throughout. The coven is hellbent on getting what they want. They stop at nothing and are willing to use Wesley as a pawn. A small glow here and there conveys more than enough magic to let us know that these witches are bad news. When the movie finally gets to show its muscle, it does so with all the squibs and magic effects they could muster up – to great results. The family dynamic at play here also really works and makes you feel like you’re watching a movie from the mid-2000s that would go triple platinum at a sleepover. While just riding the line of being a movie for adults, this could also play really well for children. Seidensticker and Speakman both bring their best to their performances in a movie that asks a lot of them. They have to be both the humor and emotional crux of the movie, and they both are up to task. Wesley is the sidekick character, just there to call out the antagonist and offer a little levity when things get too dark, but Speakman really takes the role and runs with it. When Mabel is questioning why she’s the one at the core of the movie’s conflict, she does it with intention and makes you believe that her fear is real. Directing children is no easy feat, but here Bishop and the actors make it look flawless.
The Heretiks is a movie that feels familiar, something from the past that we’ve lost in today’s movie landscape. The potential for this to be a hit among youngsters and families is here. It seeks to offer something fun and entertaining, and in that, finds success.
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Blake Williams has a B.A. in Film and Television Production from Ball State University. He aspires to one day be a director, but until that day comes you can find him at a showing of whatever's playing that day or at home alphabetizing a shelf of movies and games and muttering about how he should "slow down on spending."