Heretic

If that sounds boring, or even like a bait and switch, rest assured it’s the opposite. Heretic is uniquely compelling in its approach to frightening viewers, first by confining us in the home of a madman and then by putting us in the even more uncomfortable position of agreeing with some of the points he’s making. Hugh Grant is the studied psycho in Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’ new film, which is persuasive enough to make true believers out of the most skeptical viewers.

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The conversation between Mr. Reed (Grant) and his visitors begins cordially enough. Sisters Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Paxton (Chloe East), young Mormon missionaries who’ve been paired together and since become good friends, knock on his door to follow up on his request for more information from the church. Policy forbids them from entering unless another woman is present, but he assures them his wife is in the kitchen baking a blueberry pie. And so they pass the threshold.

We mostly view them in closeup during the initial conversation, all the better to see the growing suspicion on Sister Barnes’ face and the silent machinations at work behind Mr. Reed’s increasingly cold eyes. Sister Paxton is more credulous than her counterpart, more willing to defer to their surprisingly knowledgeable host, even when uncomfortable subjects like polygamy are brought up. Also broached during their wide-ranging conversation, which at times is more of a monologue: the similarities between religion and board games, whether or not our reality is actually a simulation, “Creep” by Radiohead, and even Jar Jar Binks (complete with Reed’s impression of the maligned Star Wars character).

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Heretic might be the most dialogue-heavy horror movie you ever see, and is all the more compelling for it. That’s thanks largely to Beck and Woods’ screenplay and Grant’s performance. He’s been under-the-radar excellent in recent years, especially as the dastardly villain of Paddington 2, but it’s difficult to think of a better performance he’s given than this one. He plays off the same charm that made him one of yesteryear’s foremost rom-com leading men, subtly tweaking his more disarming qualities until the two young women he’s lured into his house are fully defenseless.

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Well, maybe not fully. Paxton and especially Barnes (we never learn their first names) can’t match their host’s physical presence, but they can hold their own as debaters. Mr. Reed’s logic, though sound, isn’t without its inconsistencies, and the supposed miracle he shows them may be little more than a smoke-and-mirror parlor trick. Heretic is a game of verbal chess in which both sides manage to take pieces off the board, with checkmate never as close as it first appears.

Heretic is a game of verbal chess in which both sides manage to take pieces off the board.

The film was shot by Chung Chung-hoon, a regular collaborator of Park Chan-wook whose filmography also includes It Chapter One and Last Night in Soho. He turns Mr. Reed’s home, with its dimly lit interiors and timed locks that make entire sections of the house inaccessible, into a character in its own right. Heretic never feels stagey despite taking place almost entirely within these four walls, with the verbal sparring beginning in the living room before moving into a makeshift chapel and then somewhere even more unsettling.

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To hear Mr. Reed tell it, he simply wants his guests to think about their beliefs — to question whether they hold them because they were told to or because their faith is what’s truly in their hearts. And so he gives them a choice when they say they need to leave: depart through one of two doors, one marked belief and the other marked disbelief, and see where their choice leads them. Though rife with its own uncertainty, deciding whether or not to see Heretic is considerably easier.