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This is a different Hugh Grant, though there is a passing resemblance to the rom-com Don Juan with the aw-shucks manner.
Written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, Heretic is another film set during a storm that makes the most of its few sets and small cast. Sister Paxton (Chloe East) and Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) are young Mormon missionaries on bicycles visiting the home of Mr. Reed (Grant), a seemingly absent-minded scholar with an interest in religion and spiritual knowledge.
An approaching deluge induces the girls to accept Mr. Reed’s hospitality and enter his surprisingly roomy cottage. He mentions that his wife is in the kitchen making blueberry pie!
The front door closes and the camera backtracks down the foot path that approaches the house. It seems like a long way from the road.
Trap sprung.
Mr. Reed proves to be a highly intelligent and extremely well-read individual, who goes from asking questions about Mormonism to lecturing the girls on his own personal quest for the “one true religion.”
At times, he is a professor impressively expounding on several subjects at once to a class of freshmen, and Barnes and Paxton soon find themselves in over their heads as the subject matter becomes increasingly uncomfortable.
The time passes in conversation and the smell of blueberry pie fills a cozy sitting room that begins to look suspiciously normal.
Beck and Woods do a masterful job of gradually goosing up the tension without turning Mr. Reed into Dracula. Can this old duffer even be considered a physical threat?
Reed mostly remains reasonable, but the red flags are starting to pile up. Cell phones don’t work and the front door is on a time lock that won’t open till morning (!), so if the girls want to leave (and they’re always welcome to), they’ll have to exit through the back of the house.
Credit must be given to Chloe West and Sophie Thatcher for instilling their characters with brains and backbones, the ability to think and reason even when their situation hits nightmare territory.
As for Grant, the charmingly awkward Brit with the hots for Andie McDowell is a faded lobby poster, but he can still badger and beguile a captive audience. The ingratiating tendencies and ability to spin complex thoughts into amusing, provocative word bubbles remains intact in Heretic, and Grant digs deep to reach a rich vein of menace.
