Film Reviews & Movie Analysis

When two Mormon missionaries enter the house of a seemingly kindly theologian, their debates on religion soon twist into a sadistic game of belief.

We can all agree that Hugh Grant has really found his groove in his salt and pepper villain era, with his role as Mr Reed being no exception. Mr Reed is smart, easy to talk to and seems harmless enough which is why it takes his victims, Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) a long time to feel unnerved in his presence. The first part of the movie works well in winding up the anticipation before things turn sour. Especially for an audience who know it’s only a matter of time.

It’s important to note that I don’t watch a lot of horror. I’ll dabble when the plot looks good, like it did with Blink Twice, and I can’t help but dip my toe in when I come across a social commentary movie like Get Out. This is all to say that you’ll have to excuse me if I’m missing something, but I didn’t think horror films were supposed to be boring.

I stifled more than a few yawns in the cinema because despite having a good hook, Heretic overcooked the delivery. At one point I thought the movie was a double jeopardy, and had actually been made to convince the audience, (like Reed with Sisters Barnes and Paxton), to renounce all beliefs in order to bend to a man.

Genuinely poor Sisters Barnes and Paxton had to sit down as they were lectured to, stand while they were lectured, and at one point crawled while the melodically polite British tones of Mr Reed droned on.

It was a shame that despite women outnumbering men 2:1 I can’t confidently say their cumulative dialogue time managed to surpass his. Bless ’em, they gave as good as they could whenever Mr Reed took a breath between monologues. East as the optimistic, sweet but no less fearsome Sister Paxton was paired perfectly with the gothic and contained depiction of Sister Barnes.

I wanted a chance to see what more they could give, but sadly had to contend with inwardly yelling; He might be dreamy, but you are the sun!

Heretic will reward you with the odd tongue in cheek Tweet worthy zingy one-liner, give you a decent but repeat performance from Grant and leave you wanting more from Thatcher and East, whose talents were barely scratched. Mostly, especially for hardcore horror fans it might just have you praying to a higher power for it to be over.

Was I too harsh? What did you think of Heretic?