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Heretic (film)
2024 American horror film From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Heretic is a 2024 American psychological horror film, written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. It stars Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East as Mormon missionaries who visit the home of an eccentric man, Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant), after he expresses interest in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Mr. Reed's true intentions later become clear.
Heretic premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2024, and was released in the United States by A24 on November 8. It received positive reviews from critics and grossed over $59 million worldwide. For his performance, Grant received Best Actor nominations at the Golden Globes, the Critics' Choice Awards, and the BAFTA Awards, while Beck and Woods received an Independent Spirit Awards nomination for Best Screenplay.
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Plot
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Two young missionaries from the LDS Church, eager Sister Paxton and self-assured Sister Barnes, arrive at the home of a reclusive middle-aged man, Mr. Reed. He invites them in, assuring them that his wife is preparing a blueberry pie in the back of the house. They begin to discuss religion, and Sister Paxton playfully expresses a desire to visit others, after death, as a butterfly that appears on the hands of her loved ones. During the conversation, Reed makes several uncomfortable comments about their faith. When Reed steps out of the room, Barnes realizes that the smell of blueberry pie is from a candle, the front door is locked, and they have no phone signal.
They follow Reed to his study, where he gives them an ominous lecture arguing that all modern religions are adaptations of an earlier one, and claims to have found the one true religion. The girls are told that the front door is latched on a timer and will not open. He gives the girls a choice of two doors to go through to exit the house: one if they still believe in God, and one if they do not. Barnes rebels, repudiating several of his claims. They enter the "Belief" door, but later discover both doors lead to the same dungeon.
A decrepit woman appears, eats a poisoned pie, and dies. Reed claims that she is a prophet of God and the pair will witness her resurrection. A church elder arrives looking for the girls, but he can't hear their screams, and leaves. Paxton notices that the position of the prophet has changed. The prophet apparently comes back from the dead and describes the afterlife. Barnes rejects the prophet's description, noting its similarity to common hallucinations from near-death experiences. As Barnes gives Paxton a signal to attack Reed, he slashes Barnes's throat before Paxton can do so. He then claims that she will also rise from the dead.
With Barnes bleeding heavily, Reed removes a metal object from inside her arm, claiming it is a microchip that proves that Barnes was not real and the world is a simulation. Paxton recognizes the object as a contraceptive implant. Paxton realizes that everything was orchestrated by Reed; while the girls were distracted by the elder's arrival, a second woman hid the prophet's corpse, took her place and delivered the afterlife description as scripted by Reed, adding an unplanned comment: "It's not real." Reed's killing of Barnes and attempt to convince Paxton of a simulated reality was an improvisation to cover the plan going awry. Paxton discovers an underground chute in which the Prophet's corpse was hidden and climbs down, with Reed promising it will show her the "one true religion".
Paxton passes through a series of chambers, the last of which is locked with the bicycle lock she used before entering Reed's house. The final chamber is full of emaciated women in cages. She realizes Reed's personal belief: that a desire to control others is the root of all religions. Paxton stabs Reed with a letter opener, but Reed subsequently stabs her as she tries to escape. As they bleed in the basement, Paxton prays, telling Reed that it is done to think about others rather than to produce material results. Reed prepares to finish her off. Barnes, who is still alive, sneaks up on Reed and bashes his head in with a plank of wood covered in protruding nails, killing him. Paxton climbs out of a window and witnesses a butterfly land on her hand.
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Cast
- Hugh Grant as Mr. Reed[4]
- Sophie Thatcher as Sister Barnes[4]
- Chloe East as Sister Paxton[4]
- Topher Grace as Elder Kennedy[5]
Production
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In June 2023, it was reported that Scott Beck and Bryan Woods wrote and would direct the film for A24. Hugh Grant and Chloe East were cast in lead roles, with Sophie Thatcher joining later.[6] Beck and Woods said the film was inspired by Inherit the Wind (1960) and Contact (1997), as films that discuss religion seriously but "in a kind of popcorn movie context". The writing of the film was prompted by the death of Woods's father from esophageal cancer, and the questions it prompted about what happens after death.[7] Wanting to ensure the missionary characters were as genuine and authentic as possible and not clichés, the filmmakers consulted various Mormon friends during the writing and production, as well as Thatcher and East, who are ex-Mormons themselves.[8] During an interview, Beck and Woods stated they chose Grant for the lead role of Mr. Reed due to his six roles in Cloud Atlas (2012).[9]
The production was granted an interim agreement allowing filming during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike.[10] On a budget of under $10 million,[11] principal photography took place in Vancouver from October 3 to November 16, 2023.[12][13] The film was shot in chronological order.[14]
Thatcher performs a cover version of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" set to the tune of "Fade Into You", which plays in the end credits.[15]
Stance on Artificial Intelligence
The end credits of Heretic feature the statement "No Generative AI was used in the making of this film".[16] Bryan Woods spoke to Variety about the decision to include the message in the end credits, saying "We have no illusions that when people watch Heretic they’re going to go, 'Wait, did they use generative AI?' It doesn't feel like that at all, but it was important for us to put that out there because we think it's something people need to start talking about." Scott Beck added, "The importance is to have these conversations before they force things in, just because it makes sense from a corporate structure. It’s incredibly dangerous. If there’s not people to throttle it, we’re going to find ourselves in five to ten years in a very dangerous situation."[17]
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Release
Heretic premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2024.[18][19] It was released in the United Kingdom and Ireland on November 1, 2024 and in the United States a week later on November 8.[1][20][21]
Reception
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Box office
As of February 17, 2025[update], Heretic has grossed $28 million in the United States and Canada, and $31.2 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $59.2 million.[3][2]
In the United States and Canada, Heretic was released alongside The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Elevation, Weekend in Taipei, and the wide expansion of Anora, and was projected to gross around $8 million from 3,221 theaters in its opening weekend.[22] The film made $4.3 million on its first day, including $1.2 million from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $11 million, finishing second behind holdover Venom: The Last Dance.[23] The film made $5 million in its second weekend (a drop of 54.1%), and then $2.2 million in its third, finishing in fourth and seventh place, respectively.[24][25]
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 91% of 281 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The website's consensus reads: "Hugh Grant has infectious fun playing against type in Heretic, a religious horror that preaches the gospel of cerebral chills over cheap shocks."[26] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 71 out of 100, based on 49 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[27] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale, while those polled by PostTrak gave it a 70% overall positive score.[23]
Peter Bradshaw, in a review for The Guardian, described the film as "gruesome and bizarre and preposterous" and highlighted the performance of Hugh Grant, calling him "suave, dapper and evil".[28]
McKay Coppins, in The Atlantic, described the film as "A Horror Movie About an Atheist Who Won't Shut Up".[29]
Filmmaker Rich Peppiatt named it one of his top 10 feature films of 2024, praising Grant's performance.[30]
The essayist Stephen Silver criticized the film, opining that "It's got one excellent idea, and that idea is making a horror movie villain out of a smug, obnoxious atheist."[31]
Church responses
The LDS Church released a statement condemning the film's portrayal of violence against women. They then posted an article on missionary safety, intended to "assist journalists and the public with questions and concerns regarding the safety and well-being of missionaries".[32] A number of former Latter-day Saints praised the film for its realistic and nuanced portrayal of missionaries.[8]
Writing in The Christian Post, the Christian apologist Robin Schumacher noted that Mr. Reed became "his own god and asserting control over those around him—something that is indeed frightening".[33] Schumacher concludes that Mr. Reed's behaviour in the film was consistent with Fyodor Dostoevsky's dictum: "Without God all things are permitted."[33] The apologist did criticize the film, however, for Mr. Reed spouting the ahistorical claims of the Christ myth theory.[33] In the same vein, Bret Eckelberry in his review for Plugged In, critiques Heretic for presenting this "poorly evidenced fringe hypothesis widely rejected by both Christian and secular scholars" as "something new and shocking."[34]
Accolades
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References
External links
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