PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Religious horror is often shrouded with nuns, secretive churches, and the spawn of Satan. But that’s not the case in Heretic, a late 2024 release from A24 Studios. Heretic dares to go beyond the tired tropes and ask genuine questions from both sides of the belief spectrum.
Let’s take a look at this movie and see if it’ll keep audiences up at night praying.
Heretic is written and directed by Scott Beck (Haunt 2019) and Bryan Woods (65 2023). It stars Hugh Grant (Glass Onion 2022), Sophie Thatcher (Companion 2025), and Chloe East (The Fabelmens 2022). The film showcases two Mormon girls who are going door to door to attempt to convert people, when they enter the house of an enigmatic man. As the conversation wears on, the girls realize that he may be trying to use them for his own purposes.
All three of the main characters in Heretic are extremely well defined early on, and all of their respective actors play them masterfully. Sister Barnes (Thatcher) is a bit of a more brazen skeptic, Sister Paxton (East) is an innocent and devout believer, and Mr. Reed (Grant) steals the show as a former religious historian. While Grant has powerful monologues that border between charming and dangerous, the chemistry and flow that all three have is a credit to both the acting and the writing. Mr. Reed is a character that controls the screen in a way that we haven’t seen since Hannibal Lecter in The Silence Of The Lambs (read our retro review here)
Heretic‘s one location plays like a labyrinth that has a lot of care and storytelling planted into its design. From the second the audience enters, we get the sense that we’ll never leave, but it’s fascinating enough that we don’t want to. The cinematography is slick, and they use a ton of continuous 360 circular pans that highlight multiple reaction shots without ever having to cut the camera.
The overall message in Heretic manages to ride a fine line. It examines and questions religious principles without wholesale bias, while not (often) beating you over the head with beliefs. The subject matter will automatically turn some people off from this movie. But the dialogue and characters are layered and connected enough that this world could easily warrant a sequel.
As of this writing, Heretic is currently available for purchase on YouTube and Amazon Prime.
