While watching Hugh Grant’s delightfully sinister performance in Heretic, you might wonder why it feels so familiar. According to filmmakers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, Grant’s character in the new A24 horror movie was inspired by a real-life villain. And not just any real-life villain, but a notorious 21st century cult leader. And no, it’s not Jared Leto. But close!
Heretic stars Sophie Thatcher (Yellowjackets) and Chloe East (Generation) as Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton, a pair of Mormon missionaries who go door to door, attempting to convince new converts to join their church. Unfortunately, Barnes and Paxton knock on the wrong door and find themselves captive in a diabolical game concocted by the charismatic and nefarious Mr. Reed (Grant). It’s sort of like Saw, but for theology majors.
Out in theaters this weekend, Heretic was written and directed by filmmaking duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, the screenwriters behind A Quiet Place. Speaking with /Film, Beck and Woods discussed how their latest effort is an interesting inversion of A Quiet Place – unlike the John Krasinski movie, which has very little dialogue due to the alien creatures’ heightened sense of hearing, Heretic is filled with dialogue thanks to Grant’s extremely chatty villain.
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Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’ latest pits Hugh Grant against Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East in a battle of wits.
According to Beck and Woods, Mr. Reed was partially inspired by horror icon Vincent Price, but he was also based on a few specific public figures, including a real-life cult leader:
“I do think mostly when we were talking about Reed, in particular with Hugh, there’s just a lot of real-life inspirations, oddly enough. You can look at the kind of atheist thinkers out of the UK like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens.
There’s American kind of cult leaders like Keith Raniere, we talked a lot about Keith Raniere of the NXIVM cult, and how he was able to use this almost odd charm [and] this ability to listen, to get people to do what he wants and to control them.
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Hugh Grant’s Villain in Heretic Is a Little Too Real
Keith Raniere is, of course, the (former?) leader of NXVIM, the cult profiled in the HBO documentary series The Vow. Unlike Raniere, Mr. Reed isn’t rocking a ponytail and playing volleyball while engaging in human trafficking and sexual abuse. But the two men share some uncomfortable similarities. They both enjoy exhaustively explaining their opinions to a captive audience and exploiting power imbalances to manipulate and terrorize young women.
For plenty of women who have spent time in Dating Hell, Grant’s villain is realistic in a different sort of way. Mr. Reed is a pretentious pseudo-intellectual who holds a pair of teen girls hostage and mansplains religion to them for hours on end, forcing them to engage in a faith-based debate that he’s clearly rehearsed and which cannot be “won.” I cannot tell you how many times I (and so many of my friends) have been held hostage while some pretentious guy who thinks he’s the smartest man alive downs overpriced whiskey and goes on an unprompted rant about the fallacies of religion – as if anyone cares. It’s a very specific sort of guy, usually a fan of Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins – so it’s not surprising in the least that Beck and Woods also name-dropped the famous (and famously annoying) pseudo-intellectuals.
As Heretic proves, fanatical atheists can be just as annoying and harmful as certain religious movements and figures.
Two young women of faith are drawn into a deadly game of cat and mouse after seeking refuge in the house of a mysterious and unsettling man. As they navigate a labyrinth of psychological and supernatural horrors, their beliefs and survival instincts are pushed to the limit.
- Release Date
- November 8, 2024
- Runtime
- 110 Minutes
- Distributor(s)
- A24