Two young missionaries are forced to prove their faith when they knock on the wrong door and are greeted by a diabolical Mr. Reed, becoming ensnared in his deadly game of cat-and-mouse.
So there are two definitions of “Heretic”: a person believing in or practicing religious heresy or just holding an opinion at odds with what is generally accepted. Would the creators behind A Quiet Place be able to push both of those definitions to the most psychologically extreme and cerebral of conclusions?
For the most part, yes.
Beck and Woods try to be at their most sadistic and playful here, wistfully guiding you like a prayer with wavering malice down a river slowly heading downstream; you know the feeling makes you uneasy but you want to see it through cause curiosity kills cats. Their courage wains the closer we get to the end, but their delicate yet spacious aim can’t be overlooked.
You ask me, it’s more than just atmosphere or aura that helps make the most out of this limited set and production design: eloquently staged fusty academia masked in the seediness of a surreal haunted house undergoing metamorphosis. While quaint and unremarkable at first, it quickly grows more imposing as it speaks to the development of all the main characters. Even as the environments merge into a competent hybrid of Escape Room meets Cluedo, it still fosters that ambivalence into a canny piece of visual storytelling.
Really, ambivalence might as well be seeped into the bone marrow for the rest of the film, technical elements as well. Very slippery and elusive is Chung Chung Hoon’s cinematography here, but also rooted in elegance and simplicity; his utilization of light and shadow is just as striking. The editing also helps wrangle in the impending claustrophobia, even if it leans too hard into seeking an artsy approach to hide its more rudimentary bearings. Tone is forebodingly morose and at once with no stranglehold on either style, they don’t overplay on the more traditional horror tropes thankfully, it threatens to lose track of its pacing near the end but remains steadfast and composed throughout and while the tension doesn’t reach a constant fever-pitch like with the first Quiet Place or, to be more charitable, Uncut Gems, it capitalizes on its main function enough to rattle you into that constant state of unease.
Also, it should bear no mention but the score is generally excellent. The soundtrack itself is used to strong effect.
Hugh Grant literally walks us through every event like a pastor teetering on the brink of madness, mastering his natural charm to great effect and making his character’s benevolence and obsession with deconstruction absolutely spellbinding in his conviction. He’s excellent playing against type despite still being familiar in presentation but thankfully, Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East prove to be formidable foils against his jovial chipperness. And as winding as the pontificating can be, their dialogue exchanges are meticulous, plentiful and insightful all at once, further bolstered by stark characterization.
Saw meets Silence crossbred with Barbarian, the main crux of this story’s DNA embodies the spirit of those films with its deep theology discourse and intense religious diatribe, resulting in a refreshingly intellectual course that’s honestly pretty uncommon for the religious horror genre. And to give Beck and Woods credit, they take the premise as far as they can, exploring the conflicts between faith and doubt, and the struggle to reconcile belief with the harsh realities of the world; despite being mostly conversation, the narrative is still superbly unsettling. The constant challenge from both our protagonists and us to reflect on our own beliefs and the societal structures surrounding them is also a clever signal for audience participation beyond putting yourself in their shoes.
Religion is every bit as mysterious and addictively cultish as it is powerful; if people don’t take certain phrases at heart based on pure faith, others will twist said words to their advantage to fit their own beliefs and values. But it also helps the directors dig deeper into the overall complicated yet fickle dichotomy of the human psyche: why we do or say the stuff we do and why we make certain decisions EVEN WHEN WE KNOW ITS THE WRONG CHOICE (forgive me, I’m still pissed) and while it ends up barely knicking off a tiny scab of flesh off that surface regarding power and limitations of belief, it does make sense…..when you’re looking at as a game of observation. Because the thing is they don’t actively say anything concrete about faith for the vast majority of the runtime….and honestly, that’s for the better.
Unlike The Hunt that takes jabs at both the political left and right-wing but doesn’t tackle any of its messages in a smartly sophisticated manner to back up its social satire, here the way in which it’s done ties into the acknowledgment that believers of God or not, we’re taking a shot in the dark for something we don’t really know will greet us. We are indefinitely chaining ourselves down for a cause that feels fruitless to wrestle in or take back control….and for what? That’s up for us to decide.
Just like The Hunt, however, what starts off witty and interesting loses that luster the longer it goes on. I’m not so much annoyed about the film going back to the well with the traditional horror tropes (after all, we all saw the trailers); it’s more or less what they represents in and out of the contextual storytelling. The third act is where the story ironically starts pulling its punches and whether at the fault of the genre’s limitations or Beck and Woods losing courage in their earlier convictions, the resolution feels somewhat rushed and less impactful compared to the film's earlier intricacies; I’m convinced the ending was meant to be something a lot more sinister and disturbing but it had to be tweaked around for reasons.
I don’t know but it sucks because outside A Quiet Place, this was the first project of Beck and Woods have had since then that was close to actually working.
While “Heretic” can’t quite convert me into a true believer of its words due to the fickle confines of its genre, its admittedly salient points, labyrinthine cerebral atmosphere and tone and stark characterization offers enough food for thought to where that control….isn’t completely lost.
