What happens when faith is tested? ‘Heretic’ shows the answer | The Haunted Column

Two young women knock on a stranger’s door. What follows is not your standard horror flick, it’s a psychological siege. 'Heretic' takes a familiar premise and turns it inside out, delivering a tight, unnerving film that burrows under your skin and stays there.

Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, the duo behind 'A Quiet Place', strip the genre down to its essentials: one house, three characters, and no easy exits. Chloe East and Sophie Thatcher play two Mormon missionaries caught in a cat-and-mouse game with a man who seems far too interested in their faith. That man is played brilliantly and disturbingly by Hugh Grant.

Grant’s performance is slippery. He starts off disarmingly polite, all warmth and reason, until something in his eyes flickers and you realise he’s playing a long, cruel game. The horror here isn’t in what jumps out, it’s in what’s said, what’s implied, and what’s quietly controlled.

'Heretic' trades gore for mind games. It’s a film that tightens its grip with every scene, powered by smart dialogue and loaded silences. Cinematographer Aaron Morton keeps things visually stark, but not showy, the lighting turns the home into a quiet prison, and every frame feels like it’s watching back.

What makes this film stick is how it plays with belief. Not just in religion, but in people, in intentions, in safety. As the two young women are drawn deeper into Grant’s strange world, their sense of reality frays and so does yours.

There’s a moment, mid-film, where one of them starts to doubt everything she’s ever believed. That’s where 'Heretic' becomes more than a horror movie. It becomes a meditation on the vulnerability of conviction, and how easily it can be twisted into something dangerous.

It’s smart, slow-burning, and laced with dread. Grant is magnetic and terrifying. East and Thatcher hold their own with raw, grounded performances. 'Heretic' doesn’t go big, but it goes deep, and it leaves you with more questions than answers. It boils belief down to its essence: control. That’s what holds everything together, whether we admit it or not.
You won’t come out screaming. But you will come out unsettled. And that’s the point.