Heretic (2024)

Rated R for being theologically dubious.  I mean, the movie is called Heretic.  It's going to have a lot of discussion about the foolishness of religion, bordering on the inappropriate.  But it's also a horror movie, which means we have the torturing and murder of women, which includes blood.  The movie also features a fairly frank --if naive --discussion about sexuality.

DIRECTORS:  Scott Beck and Bryan Woods

I sometimes hate how I watch movies.  There are so many days that I could just enjoy movies.  Because here's the scoop on Heretic.  Honestly, I really enjoyed this movie.  I was watching it, ready to recommend the heckfire out of the movie.  And, when all is said and done about the movie, I kind of want to watch it again.  It was honestly really good.  But the truth of the matter was that there were two small details which stopped it from being a perfect movie.  And because I know that I'm going to write about the movie, I can't stop thinking about how I have to discuss a fascinating movie that has two beats that just don't work in the film.

I feel like writing a short summary of the film, so I'm going to do that.  It's against my better nature to summarize a film.  I assume that I'm writing for an audience who is savvy enough to know what a movie is about before reading a blog that discusses the film in-depth.  Again, if you are reading willy-nilly, not stopping you from doing that either.  Anyway, the movie's protagonists are two LDS missionary girls.  They stop at Mr. Reed's house because he is on a list of people who are interested in learning more about the faith.  It quickly becomes clear that Mr. Reed is far more informed about the church and general faith matters than their other stops.  After Mr. Reed drops a bunch of red flags, the girls realize that this place isn't safe.  They try to leave, only to find out that they are trapped in the house and Mr. Reed wants to test their faith using manufactured exercises that are quite danerous.  The midway point of the movie has the girls split between taking doors labeled "Belief" and "Disbelief" leading to potential exits.  Because people end up in the same place regardless of belief, according to Reed, they end up in a basement with a cruel experiment in the afterlife involving an abused woman known as "The Prophet", who can somehow return from the grave.  Sister Barnes --the more worldwise of the two --plans to attack Reed to escape, but has her throat cut before she can issue commands to Sister Paxton.  Sister Paxton takes Barnes's advice to challenge Reed and starts to doubt everything.  She figures out how the Prophet cheats death and finds a basement full of girls.  Reed posits that no matter what Paxton did, she would have ended up here.  But Reed is unaware that Paxton is carrying a letter opening and she stabs him in the neck.  He chases after her, almost killing her, when Sister Barnes somehow awakens and stabs him in the head with a board with nails.  The end.

Now, I have a theory that this was a much shorter film at one point.  In my head, this movie kind of works as an anthology episode of a horror show.  The first half is an entirely tight film with the two LDS members sparring off against Reed, who is becoming more sinister the longer the movie progresses.  I earnestly see the film ending with the two girls and the doors, only to discover that both doors ultimately lead to the basement.  It's the introduction of the Prophet that shifts the movie into something almost completely new and, if I'm honest, something somewhat weaker.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm really glad that the movie didn't give up the grounded world of the first half for the supernatural potetial of the second half.  I don't think I could have made sense of the movie had the Prophet actually been miraculously returned from the dead.  But the first half fo the movie is so marvelously intimate.  It follows the rules of a bottle episode.  The two girls sitting across from Reed as he makes trips out of the room, giving them time to reveal their inner throughts to the audience is a perfect dynamic.  I also like how the first half plays with the importance of manners within a religious setting coupled with the fact that these two women are not allowed to verbalize their discomfort with Reed.  Even when the jig is up and Reed confesses that he didn't have a wife --even going as far to use the fictional wife as a teaching tool for atheism --the two try to maintain their composure.  

Sure, you could see their maintaining of the status quo an attempt to disarm an assailant.  But honestly, that decorum seems to be a safety blanket.  The two girls talk to him in the voice of the LDS church --a voice laden with respect because the two of them think that if they can almost turn back time to when they entered, they would never have been fooled by Reed's charm.  Even as the movie ends, Paxton keeps talking to him with a level-headed voice.  Part of it comes from the rules that Reed sets throughout the discussion.  A key thing that makes Reed such a compelling villain is the fact that he's played by Hugh Grant.  I don't think I've ever thought that Grant could make such a fascinating monster.  Much like Hannibal Lecter, Reed is a character who wants to maintain a sense of composure and dignity about his crime.  Beyond the psychopathy that they exhibit, there's a nobilty to their murders.  It's really messed up, but it's also great to watch.

What is interesting is that I'm wildly intrigued by the intention of this movie.  The smartest guy in the room is Reed.  Part of that comes from the fact that this is his trap and he's prepared for it.  But he's also the most read in the room.  Now, without watching this movie, there would be a temptation to say that this is a pro-faith movie because the movie is a takedown of Reed, the atheist intellectual.  Paxton and Barnes are the clear heroes of the movie.  But I don't think that the movie wants us to necessarily root for the LDS church.  One thing that the movie makes almost abundantl clear is that Reed and Paxton aren't really leanred on Reed's level.  Barnes, because she hasn't been raised in the LDS church, knows a lot of Reed's rhetoric that he throws at her.  She has things throw back and him.  She may not be able to cite line and verse.  However, she's really good at pointing out some of Reed logical fallacies when arguing.  She recognizes that he's Texas Sharpshooting a bit, pulling evidence out of context of arguments that would fight against his message.  Yet, even with Reed's imperfect arugments, the movie almost wants us to know the things that Reed is pointing out.  As much as this is a movie about surviving a killer's house, Reed's messaging is almost a lesson in world religions in a two hour film.  

So what is the message?  I stress that the LDS protagonists come across as naive in the shadow of this intellectual titan like Reed.  It was just the other day that I voiced my frustration that all movies tend to be cynical about God, and that's a bummer watching those kinds of things over and over.  Rather, it's almost an accusation about zealotry of another kind.  While it may not be the end of the world if someone is an atheist, there is danger in becoming a zealot over one's athetism.  Reed's downfall and evilness doesn't come from the fact that he is an atheist or that he reads too much.  Instead, the real probem comes from the notion that he is evangelizing harder than the evangelists at his house.  He needs to break Paxton by the end of this film.  Those women in his basement are his trophies for souls converted to unbelief.  The movie starts off with Paxton lamenting to Barnes that she hasn't saved anyone yet.  But the same is true about what Reed is doing in his house.  He's converting people to a world without God and that's the criticism of the film.

So what bothers me?  I mean, I"m glad that the Prophet wasn't an actual prophet.  It would defeat the narrative of the entire first half of the film.  The fact that he's so concerned with the girls ignoring all of the evidence in front of them only to present them with a mystical character living in the basement seems silly.  But the problem I have is how the girls have to suvive Reed's house.  Reed's entire character is about obsession.  He's obsessed with religion.  But beyond that, he's obsessed with the details of everything.  Everything in Reed's house, including the house itself, is arranged so that these girls end up in the basement regardless of what choice they make.  So the letter opener and the matches?  If every detail is accounted for, why are these objects options?  Reed's entire thesis is that the world is going to play out without surprises.  Both of the girls see the letter opener.  Why wouldn't Reed notice that?  He's so meticulous about his murder plans that he has a miniature of the house with details planned out.  How would he not notice the letter opener, the object that begins his downfall?  

The second issue is a little more major.  It's absurd that Reed survives the neck stabbing, let along has the wherewithall to chase Paxton through his death maze.  But then Barnes returns?  Again, the point is to try to be ambiguous about the existence of God at the end.  The butterfly that Barnes promises is only a dream.  But Barnes is dead.  She had been bleeding out for far too long.  Her corpse is mutilated to get to her birth control.  There's no way that she's just playing possom to save Paxton.  It makes for a fun ending, but an ending that is just beyond plausibility, especially with a movie that plays with faith and cynicism.  

Again, I hate the way that I watch these movies.  I found the whole thing super intellectually stimulating.  Hugh Grant is incredible in this role.  It's not terrifying, but it is suspenseful as heck.  But those two moment stop the movie from really trascending.