What if Hugh Grant promised you a freshly baked blueberry pie? It sounds like a dream scenario plucked from an inviting Christmas rom-com, but directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods use it as the basis for something wonderfully sinister.
Few films have been as simultaneously silly and pulse-pounding as Heretic, a tale of two young Mormon missionaries lured into an elaborate test of faith. The film is Saw for Reddit atheism, anchored by a delightfully devious performance from Grant, whose career heartthrob status is turned on its head. The plot may as well be improvised, given how each reveal seems to emanate from nowhere, but the precision with which the directing duo turns each screw is a marvel to behold. Heretic shouldn’t work, and the fact that it does is a twisted miracle.
