Heretic

Heretic is an interesting and refreshing take on horror. First things first, the acting was great. Hugh Grant played an extremely convincing and terrifying antagonist. His performance was second only to Chloe East and Sophie Thatcher. I am familiar with Sophie Thatcher’s work on Yellowjackets, so I knew walking into this movie she was going to put on an amazing performance. What caught me by surprise was Chloe East’s work. Now up until this movie I was unfamiliar with her, I have never seen her in any movies or shows and was truly expecting her to be side lined by familiar co-stars. I am happy to say that the performance she put on was next level and I am excited to see her future on the silver screen.

Now for the movie itself. I will keep this as non spoiler as possible because I highly suggest seeing it in the theaters. Heretic invokes the questions people often ask themselves on religion, what is the right religion, how much one believes, and what I think is a very important question, how blindly will you follow your faith? I would not call this a religious movie but religion is so closely tied with horror and this movie uses it so well.

The bare bones plot of the Heretic is two Mormon girls are making house calls and visit Hugh Grants characters home. They are soon put into an intellectual chess match with the man and are captured in his house, forced to face him not only physically but mentally as they try to escape. I want to say as little as I can on the plot just because the twists are very good and I don’t want to give anything away.

At first I thought the beginning of the movie felt as though it was dragging on a little, but everything was really called back to and it added in building these characters up and how they all sort of believe the same things but go about it differently. In the first halfish of the movie is where I found the acting really shinned though, seeing the subtle panic slowly start to develop, and the realization that they are trapped. So much of it was in the facial expressions and slight actions the characters take. This movie has a great sense of detail. Not only does the slight details stand out but so do the large ones. The set was great, it wasn’t big by any means and everything felt condensed. It helps with the sense that this isn’t some great adventure but two girls alone facing their demons.

Overall I will give this movie a 7.5/10. Although I have so much good things to say I feel it doesn’t have a lot of rewatchability. It also has some parts I felt were unnecessary and could’ve been cut to make more screen time for Sophie and Chloe.

Finally take everything here with a grain of salt. I have no proffesional credentials to be reviewing movies. I just like them and love taliking about them. I highly encourage seeing this movie for yourselves and experiencing the horror that is Heretic on the big screen.