Heretic

This weekend, Heretic, a new religious horror thriller releases in theaters. Heretic follows two female Mormon missionaries as they are trapped in the house of a strange man. The two must navigate through a game of cat and mouse in order to escape. I have been trying to get more into the horror genre and thought this movie would be an interesting one to explore.

I thought this movie was a very well done little horror thriller. This movie delivers nonstop thrills and tension from beginning to end. Hugh Grant does a great job of playing this charismatic psycho. Right from the beginning you can tell something is not quite right and as time goes on, he just gets more and more terrifying. I like how the movie unfolds into this cat and mouse game between these two girls and Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant). Mr. Reed keeps bringing all of these new choices and ideas that attacks the girls' faith while the two girls continue to figure out what is goal is and how to outsmart him. The movie also does a great job of tackling ideas of religion and individual faith. You can see the girls' faith being put to the test with all of these different trials. The movie doesn't specifically attack religion but it does address points on both sides of the argument. The movie even uses the two female characters to address different spectrums within the realm of faith. I like that the movie tells a more small scale isolation story approach. There are no big set pieces, it is just all about these two girls trying to escape this house. The movie also does a great job of balancing the tension and horror. I wouldn't classify this as a scary movie but the constant tension definitely makes you unconformable and leaves you on the edge of your seat. Finally, I like how there were no throwaway lines of dialogue. Irrelevant lines at the beginning of the film become relevant at the end of the movie.

There are not any big issues with this film. It probably could have been a little tighter maybe trimming 10 minutes off the run time but I don't have any specific issues with the film.

Overall, this is a very intense horror thriller that tackles deep topics while still remaining exciting and engaging.

Score: 8/10 Grade: B+ Recommendation: Go see it