The thick smell of sulphur hangs over Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’s terrific low-budget horror flick about two Mormon missionaries (Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East) who knock on the wrong door. This creepy suburban house, it transpires, is the lair of Mr Reed, an avuncular small-town Satan who is played with such lip-smacking relish by Hugh Grant that one wishes the actor had run to the dark side much sooner.
Prancing about in comfortable knitwear, preparing pots of tea and slices of blueberry pie, Mr Reed plans to test the girls’ faith and show them a miracle. He explains that the only way out is down the stairs, through the basement and past a stooped, silent figure who is probably not Mrs Reed. Every religion, he argues, is an exercise in control. That may be the case with every good B-movie as well. Wringing the maximum mileage from its claustrophobic location, Heretic merrily spins us around and steers us towards darkness. It’s a tense, tight fairground ride of a film.
In UK and Irish cinemas
