Heretic: The Devil Is in The Details

“Are we talking about religion, or board games, or music?”

“Yes.”

The pseudo-genre “elevated horror” occupies a strange, liminal space in modern movie culture. It’s divisive. The hater’s definition runs something like: “n. too good for lo-fi blood and guts; pretentious; psychological art film about trauma or some shit.” While filmmakers have used the raw materials of genre to explore deeper themes since the birth of cinema, the phrase today connotes a specific blend of high-art visual sense coupled with a horror conceit that carries a heavy load of thematic baggage.

The production/distribution house A24 has defined the style with modern classics like Hereditary (2018) and The VVitch (2015). Their latest offering, Heretic, was independently produced, but aligns closely with the brand: slick, edgy, modern. Yet, despite an intriguing premise and A-list creative team, it fails to achieve the artistic highs of the aforementioned works, ultimately delivering catnip to the haters of all things “elevated.”

The film opens with two young Mormon missionaries traipsing through their duties, knocking on doors to spread the good word and hopefully fill their conversion quotas. The more devout of the two, Sister Paxton (Chloe East), is cruelly mocked by a gaggle of secular girls who try to expose her “magic underpants,” a phrase reused in the film as an example of religious absurdity. 

Her partner, Sister Barnes, is a bit more streetwise – her arrival in the Mormon church followed a tumultuous upbringing. The film does an excellent job of setting up the Sisters’ dichotomy,, ripe for conflict.

They find their way to a secluded house, where kindly Mr. Reed answers the door with the awkward, disinterested politeness the missionaries have come to expect. Prompted by a sudden rainstorm, he invites them in, assuring his wife is in the other room. Once he has them inside, Reed becomes an engaged, erudite conversationalist. He seems to know more about their faith than they do, banging a well-thumbed copy of The Mormon Bible down on his coffee table.

So begins a slowly escalating ordeal wherein the girls’ beliefs are broken down by the mansplainer from hell. Mr. Reed has beef – “malnourished by the fast food of religion,” he has thus dug through the foment of history in search of “the one true religion.” 

His lecture, to wit: religion is a capitalistic game, not unlike Monopoly. Most religions share basic details, each new one simply an iteration. Kind of like how Radiohead ripped off The Hollies for their song “Creep” and got sued for songwriting royalties. Yes, that bit is 1000% in the movie.

As Reed’s questioning begins to resemble a taunting interrogation, and the storm rages outside, the sisters find out the house is outfitted with timer locks, metal reinforcements to block cell phone signals, and a very creepy basement.

The film could take so many fascinating directions from this point. (In its trailer, I detected a hint of the mind-bending horror novel House of Leaves as a potential inspiration.) But what follows amounts to a series of underwhelming set pieces. Spooky stuff happens, but the theological exploration evaporates as the plot begins to resemble one of Mr. Reed’s board games.

Heretic filmmakering duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods have mentioned a desire to pivot from their screenplay for A Quiet Place, which naturally precluded long speeches. Indeed, the resulting film is a flood of language. Once Mr. Reed gets going, they simply let him cook.

But the promise of Hugh Grant in demented Dahmer-glasses mode is unfortunately wasted here. He crafts a mesmerizing dead-eyed characterization, but also delves into some unfortunate cringe comedy, including a riff on Jar Jar Binks literally no one asked for. Like Nicolas Cage in this year’s surprise hit Longlegs (2024), his unrestrained performance would have benefited from more focused direction.

To prove I’m not a snob, I will say I appreciated the massive jump-scare Beck and Woods pull off toward the end. The film is buoyed by exceptional craftsmanship, maintaining visual interest as it settles into its verbose second act. Cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon keeps the atmosphere churning, his predatory camera prowling the sprawling, eerily cozy house by production designer Philip Messina.

Less a story than a curation of Wikipedia rabbit holes, Heretic presents itself as a variation of the pagan pulp that has made Ari Aster A24’s poster boy. Thing is, Aster is a true sicko, while Beck and Woods have a track record of tepid thrillers and the sci-fi bomb 65 (2023). However committed to the bit, they don’t pack much follow-through behind their big-swing themes. They approach some intriguingly blasphemous ideas, only to drop them like front-loaded shock value for the mall crowd.

Two of my strongest takeaways from the film were during the credits. As it turns out, the songwriters for Radiohead’s “Creep” include Hollies members Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood - a notable post-lawsuit addition of two soft-rock boomers to the legendary UK band. Later in the credit roll, we get the affirmation that “no generative AI was used in the making of this film.” At least we were spared modern filmmaking’s magic underpants.

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