Heretic Film Review
Sometimes, I feel like films don’t raise difficult questions anymore. Questions like: What is the source of faith and worship? Or, what is faith fundamentally about? Thankfully, Heretic (2025) was recently released to tackle these very questions.
The plot takes a sinister turn when two Mormon missionaries, Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East), arrive at the doorstep of Mr. Barnes (Hugh Grant) to preach the Mormon gospel, hoping to convert him. After using a few lies to convince the girls to enter his home, the story evolves into one of the most intriguing films I’ve seen that addresses God and faith... for the first half of the movie. For that portion, the film aggressively questions faith in all its forms, its capitalist origins, and its sinister undertones. In response, Mr. Barnes offers a solution in the form of what he calls the “true religion.” Unfortunately, the last third of the film falls off a bit.
So many interesting ideas are set up during the first half of the film. We have no idea who Mr. Barnes is. He has incredibly elaborate lock systems on his house that are never explained, and he speaks in a calm and well-mannered way, yet harbors deep resentment toward religion. None of this is explored, and we learn next to nothing about him. While I still overall enjoyed the film, I was hoping it would go in a completely different direction. There’s a point near the end where I thought it would conclude, and it would have been incredibly poignant. But the film pushes on, ultimately bringing us almost exactly back to where we started. In fact, there are several fan theories about the film's ending due to how cryptic it is, with viewers searching for hidden meanings to try to understand what actually happened.
To the film’s credit, it isn’t as hard on God-fearing people as one might expect. Hugh Grant’s character, while raising difficult questions about religion, doesn’t adopt a condescending tone. He wants to meet these missionaries on common ground and try to sway their beliefs. This approach is what makes the first half of the film so strong. After that, the movie drifts into more common horror tropes, and there are some other choices that I didn’t fully agree with. Mr. Barnes is a fascinating character, and we never really get to the heart of his true motivations. In the beginning, it almost seems like he believes in some Lovecraftian horror, and that he’s part of an elaborate cult that built his house to trap missionaries and test their faith against their true God. But the truth is quite different.
The filmmaking, acting, and writing are superb, but in terms of the effective execution of such an interesting idea, the film falls short. By no means is it a terrible movie, and if you go in knowing it’s more grounded, you may enjoy it more than I did. The ending, while I didn’t like the direction the story took, is still intriguing. I can understand how it has sparked fan theories as audiences try to decipher what happened. Overall, it’s worth a watch, but just keep your expectations for the story in check.
