‘Heretic’ Review: Hugh Grant Is Genteelly Terrifying as a Creep Hell-Bent on Converting Others to His ‘One True Religion’
variety.comPeter Debruge Chief Film Critic You’ve heard of “faith-based movies”? Well, “Heretic” is essentially the opposite. In A24’s thorny, impossible-to-anticipate thriller, co-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (best known as the writers of “A Quiet Place”) ask audiences to accept Hugh Grant as a demented religious scholar so extreme, he’s arranged to trap two Mormon missionaries in his house and torment them into rejecting their faith in Joseph Smith and all his teachings.
The lesson this sicko has planned is to Bible study what “Saw” is to shop class. But this is Hugh Grant we’re talking about.
When his character, the innocuously sweater-clad and bespectacled Mr. Reed, answers the door, the young pair have no reason to question his motives, or his generous offer of fresh-baked blueberry pie.
These two proselytizers have come selling salvation. Beck and Woods are selling something else — namely, suspense — counting on Grant’s radically against-type turn to keep audiences on their toes.
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