by Nick Nitkowski

“Heretic” is the latest from A24, the production company that has definitely made a name for itself over the years. When I see the A24 logo during a trailer, I already know that I’m either going to love the movie, or I’m going to hate it. There’s rarely ever an in-between with them. And also 9 times out of 10, I end up loving the project. At the very least, whether good or bad, they are definitely memorable. So, of course, when I saw the trailer for “Heretic”, I was immediately interested as someone with no ties to religion. 

Religion can be a very sensitive topic of discussion these days. Mainly because most people of religious faith cannot fathom the mere possibility that everything that they have been taught over the years about religion as truth could potentially be false. The movie “Heretic” dares to have that conversation as the movie is about two Mormon missionary girls visiting the house of a man named Mr. Reed, played by Hugh Grant, who invites them over to discuss their Mormon faith, but they soon find themselves trapped in a game of cat-and-mouse. 

I enjoyed this movie. The first half or so of this movie is dialogue driven and the dialogue is very well written. If it wasn’t, this movie would be pretty boring. But the subject matter as well as the delivery from the actors, especially Hugh Grant, really elevates this movie and keeps me interested. It also had a lot of good talking points about multiple religions that had me fascinated. Having said that, this movie is not for everyone. There were a few brief moments where I did feel that the pace was slowing done a bit.

At first glance, one might see this as a religious-based horror film and while religion is the center focus of the film, I can’t really categorize this movie as a horror. Sure, there are some creepy and even unsettling moments in the last half of the film, but nothing that I would consider full horror. There may have been one jump scare in there somewhere, but not effective enough to be scary. So, if you’re looking for your typical horror film, you may want to look elsewhere because this isn’t it.

I mentioned Hugh Grant’s delivery of lines earlier. Word has been out there for a while that Hugh Grant is difficult to work with on just about every film project he’s been on. I’m not sure if that’s still the case to this very day, you have to admit that he still gives great performances and this film is no exception. I thought he was great throughout this whole movie. The other two girls played by Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East were good in the film, but Hugh Grant carried this whole movie on his back. And Topher Grace is briefly in the movie. I felt like his character could have been played by anyone. 

Overall, I thought “Heretic” was a great movie with well-written dialogue that was very well delivered by Hugh Grant’s acting performance with the only issue I noticed being a slightly slow pace in certain parts of the film. The movie clocks in at an hour and 50 minutes long. I think an hour forty-five would have been the perfect runtime for this movie. If you are someone who isn’t easily offended by conflicting talks about religion, then I would recommend checking this movie out.

4 ½ stars