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Released by: A24
Released on: January 21st, 2025.
Director: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods
Cast: Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East
Year: 2024
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Heretic – Movie Review:
Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) are two missionaries in service of The Church of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints who knock on the door of a quirky middle-aged man named Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant) who seems only too happy to let them into his home to discuss religious matters. In fact, he tells them that his wife is making a pie in the kitchen and once it's ready, he'll be happy to share it with them.
The young women enter and soon enough, the three discuss religious matters, with Reed occasionally chiming in with some rather stinging commentary on their Mormon belief system. When Reed gets up and leaves the room, Sister Barnes alerts Sister Paxton to something she's noticed - the blueberry smell in the home isn't from a pie, it's from a candle. Soon enough, the women realize that the front door is locked shut and their phones don't work.
From here, they reconnect with Reed in another room, where he rants quite angrily about how he has found the one true religion, after which he gives them a choice of two doors they can go through to get out of the house - if they still believe in the existence of a higher power after his rants, they can choose one door, and if they do not, they are to choose the other. Strong in their faith, they choose the door indicating that they still believe in a God, and soon realize that both doors lead to the same place after all - a dungeon.
We'll leave it at that, but let it suffice to say that 2024’s Heretic, from the writing and directing team of Scott Beck and Bryan Woods and released by A24, goes into some very unexpected directions and proves to be as interesting and thought provoking as it is genuinely tense. A wholly unique mix of theological discussion and effective horror movie tropes, Heretic turns out to be a lot of fun. Yes, there’s a fairly drastic tonal shift once the religious discussion gives way to over the top horror movie theatrics, but there’s no shortage of entertainment value to glean from this change in direction, even if you’re left wanting maybe a few more answers to some of the questions posed by the first third of the film.
A lot of what makes the film work is Hugh Grant’s performance. He’s fantastic here, as amiable and charming as you’d expect him to be given much of his past work, until he isn’t. It’s a very good role for him and it plays to his strengths as an actor, and it’s also really interesting to see him go off, cast against type as he is in this movie. Sophie Thatcher, as the more confident and outgoing of the two Morman sisters, also delivers very strong work in the picture, as does Chloe East as the more meek and mild of the pair. There’s some really interesting chemistry between the three leads in the film, which helps to amplify tension in all the right ways.
Heretic – UHD Review:
A24 brings Heretic to UHD framed at 2.39.1 in an HVEC encoded 2160p transfer with HDR10 and it looks excellent. Shot digitally, the image is obviously spotless, and it shows excellent detail throughout, especially in the close-up scenes, though it isn’t limited in that way as the picture shows off all the detail and texture in background items just as well as it does details in performers faces. There’s really nice texture here as well and good depth the image. Colors look great and black levels are nice and deep. Skin tones look natural and the image is free of any obvious compression artifacts or sharpening. All in all, the movie looks great on UHD.
Audio chores are handled by an English language Dolby Atmos mix. English SDH, English Descriptive Audio and Spanish subtitles are all provided. Audio quality is also excellent, with the surround channels used aggressively throughout the movie starting with the use of music and the gun shots at the range early in the film. The soundtrack has really nice range to it and there’s nice, tight bass response throughout the movie, but it never buries the dialogue, which remains clean and clear throughout.
Extras start off with a commentary with Writer-Directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods that goes over the genesis of the project, casting the movie and working with the actors, location work, what went into writing the script, the themes and ideas that this movie deliberately explores, work that inspired their own, collaborating on directing the film, who did what behind the scenes, where some of the ideas for the feature came from and lots more.
Seeing Is Believing: Behind The Scenes Of Heretic is a fifteen minute behind the scenes featurette that features some interesting clips showing off the making of the movie as well as insight from Scott Beck, Bryan Woods, Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East detailing what it was like working on the production, thoughts on what makes the movie interesting and what it was like collaborating together on the production.
Included inside the packaging along with the disc is a set of six behind the scenes photographs on postcard-sized prints by Kimberley French.
Heretic - The Final Word:
Heretic is absolutely worth seeing, particularly for those with an appreciation for religiously-themed horror movies. Highlighted by an excellent performance from Hugh Grant, very much cast against type here, the movie features a smart script and very solid supporting work from the rest of its cast to go along with some strong production values, a great visual style and some truly interesting thematic explorations of its core idea. The UHD release from A24 features a flawless 4k transfer, really strong audio and some nice extra features as well. Highly recommended!