Heretic Review

Alright, alright, I know I've been hard on A24 before, but I actually was looking forward to Heretic. For one, Hugh Grant was in it. I love Hugh Grant. Even when he's in a terrible movie where he hates ever moment he had to work, he's still entertaining. He was the best part of Wonka is what I'm saying. Second, I found it interesting that the main characters were Mormon missionaries. Given A24's artsy track record I was interested to see the angle they were going to take with that. Plus I like the music they used in the trailer.

What's The Movie About?

Two Mormon missionaries are lured into a house by Hugh Grant who traps them inside and promises to show them the "true religion".

What I Like.

As much as I hate to do this, I don't really want to tell you much about this movie. This is a movie that builds and iterates upon itself, with the plot constantly twisting so you don't really know what's gonna happen. What I will say is that the dialogue is a whole lot of fun. Most of it is Hugh Grant lecturing the lead girls about religion and theology, but I actually like the academics of belief a lot, so I was highly entertained. Also, despite that description, I didn't feel condescended at all. It feels more like two sides being presented. One side is the "good" side but they did a good job showing off both sides. I was actually interested instead of rolling my eyes is my point. The explanation of what is happening I thought was pretty cool as well. This plot is essentially a hardcore episode of Scooby-Doo. I like the leads. I will admit they aren't really much compared to Hugh Grant, but they have a nice arc and I appreciated that the Final Girl wasn't who I was expecting it to be. 

What I Don't Like.

The ending. The ending is where all the twists go kinda overboard. Without going into detail (since I still am gonna recommend it) the plot basically goes from possible supernatural, to probably not, to DEFINATELY supernatural. Continuing with the Scooby-Doo comparison, imagine this is an episode that was both a guy in a mask as per usual, and also this was one of those weird episodes where the bad guy is actually monster. The funny thing is, everyone I watched the movie with agreed that the ending goes off the rails, but we all disagreed about which specific part we thought it happened at. Personally, I would have liked it if the fate of the characters was a bit ambiguous. Speaking of which, I also don't know if I like the way they spell out Hugh Grant's philosophy. It could just be because I had so much fun listen to him talk around it though.

Final Summation.

Despite the lackluster finish, I still liked Heretic. The streak of good movies continues! A24 still isn't quite redeemed in my eyes, but there's at least one more movie coming out this year.