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Hugh Grant, one of the most household names in Hollywood romcoms for two decades, is now pulling out all the big guns as the creepy, majestic, and hardcore critic of all things religion in Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’ new Mormon horror, Heretic (2024). Beck and Woods have previously tried their hands on filmmaking after co-writing the 2018 blockbuster “A Quiet Place,” but they couldn’t really tap into the horror genre before this venture with Grant. “Heretic” is one of those movies that stay with you long after you’re done watching it, and is bound to be a solid Thanksgiving horror for those who fancy the genre. The film raises questions about religious beliefs and points out the dogma behind every big religion. The cast also includes Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East as the two Church members stuck with Mr. Reed and his web of mind games.
Heretic (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis :
Why does Sister Barnes and Paxton visit Mr. Reed?
Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton are a couple of young Mormon missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Church elders send them to people who refuse to believe their cause, hoping that the sisters will be able to change their minds. Mr. Reed happens to be one of these defiant people, and Barnes and Paxton pay him a visit with the Church booklet. Even though the Sisters urge to see a woman present in the house before walking in, Mr. Reed deceives them into believing that his wife is inside baking a pie. Reed collects both of their coats and leaves them alone in the living room while the scent of pie takes over the house.
What’s the first question Mr. Reed asks?
Mr. Reed starts off the conversation playing a jolly, old guy, convincing the ladies that his house is a safe space for them. We don’t see his wife still, and he starts discussing pies with Sister Paxton. He also brings out the Book of Mormon to showcase his knowledge on the topic. Reed catches the sisters off guard when he asks their views on polygamy. He backs up his question with the example of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism.
Reed argues that Smith’s sexual relationships with multiple women were the beginning of a misogynistic practice that the Mormon men continued to follow by having multiple wives. Reed thinks that the whole essence of Mormonism is plagued with heavy brainwashing and how they had to stop it in 1890 after the Supreme Court made it clear that such religious practices couldn’t be part of the new America. Sister Barnes does try to justify the act by saying that polygamy was needed to populate their community, but Reed’s argument clearly has more substance and he succeeds in sowing the first seed of doubt in their minds.
Why can’t the Sisters leave the house?
After getting caught completely off guard by Reed and his disbelief in religion, Sister Barnes once again asks him to bring his wife over to the room. Reed insists that his lady is just shy and goes to find her again, reassuring the ladies. But the harmless image he created of himself up until now soon starts to crumble when Barnes finds that the smell of the blueberry pie was coming out of the candle he lit earlier.
The sisters then plan to wrap it up and leave, only to realize that the front door is locked and the keys to their bicycles are still in Barnes’ coat pocket. To make things worse, they also don’t get any connection on their cell phones, and the sisters find themselves stuck inside a house with a nonbeliever. When they eventually find Mr. Reed, he explains that the door is locked by a timer which can’t be unlocked until the next morning. Now the sisters either have to leave by the back doors of his house, or stick with him for another of his questions.
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What connection does Reed make between Religion, Monopoly, and Music?
When the sisters are forced to choose a door to leave the house, they insist Reed call his wife to see them out. Much like the audience, Reed is baffled that they still believe that his wife is around somewhere. He compares that to their belief in religion, how despite every evidence being on the contrary of the existence of God, they still choose to believe in the lie. He then pulls out the Landlords Game, a 1904 board game created by Elizabeth Magie. Reed tells them how the creator of Monopoly, Charles Darrow copied the idea and made a fortune out of a woman’s ideas. Similarly, he makes an example out of the song “The Air That I Breathe” by the Hollies, and how everyone has listened to the same tune in Radiohead’s “Creep.”
Reed goes on to mention how Radiohead sued Lana Del Rey for illegally sampling their song. He eventually ends up in the context of religion again, where the three major religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all derive from the same source material in different forms. He proves his point further by putting ‘The Book of Mormon’ on top of the table and labeling it as a spit-worthy manuscript following the same old source we’ve heard of a million times.
Who is the Prophet?
Reed claims that all the sacred texts are pure rubbish and they shouldn’t be held in any true literal sense. He draws a parallel between Christianity and Jesus with Gods from other religions, who were present in history long before the birth of Jesus Christ. Moreover, Reed thinks that religion is nothing but a product sold to us, and now he has come up with a product himself. Reed proceeds to label two of the doors as belief and disbelief and asks his guests to choose a door to make an exit.
Despite being scared for her life, Sister Barnes stands her ground and refuses to believe a word Reed says. She thinks that Reed is merely testing their faith and she’s had enough of it. Barnes takes Sister Paxton with her and they go through the Belief door, which leads to a dark dungeon. Reed obviously locks them inside, and the only window is caged. The girls do get a wooden log with nails, and Barnes manages to steal a letter opener. She gives the opener to Paxton, as Reed focuses less on her, she’s the right candidate to kill him.
Freaky Reed isn’t just content with locking the girls, and now he brings forth a ‘Prophet,’ who arrives with a blueberry pie which is laced with wolfsbane. Reed claims that his prophet is going to perform a miracle, and he needs the girls to witness it. The ghastly looking Prophet buries her face in the pie and dies. Reed makes sure the girls check her pulse and lift her head to confirm she’s dead. But all this comes to a halt when a Church elder comes knocking at Reed’s door, trying to find the missing girls.
Heretic (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
Does Mr. Reed kill Sister Barnes?
Paxton and Barnes try to grab a matchbox from the small gap underneath the locked door, even though they don’t manage to do anything with the matches. But they return to the basement to find the Prophet’s head is turned the other way, and soon she creeps up behind sister Paxton. Reed comes down the basement to take the resurrected Prophet, reassuring her that her journey to the other side will be recorded in the text.
Sister Barnes refuses to believe that Reed’s miracle is real, and she thinks that what happened was just a near-death experience, and the Prophet never actually died. She recalls a similar incident that happened to her when she was a young kid, how she nearly died in a Taco Bell. Sister Barnes is convinced that Reed’s game is to kill them by convincing them that they can be brought back to life, and she’s not impressed by the little magic trick Reed tried to make an example out of. In between all the back and forth between Reed and Barnes, just when Paxton has the right opportunity to stab him, Reed slits Barnes’ throat.
He then proceeds to cut Barnes’ upper arm, where earlier in the film, she seemed to have an itch problem. He finds a small metal rod from her flesh and claims that Sister Barnes isn’t real and that she’s just a sort of simulation. The annoying murderer goes on to explain the ancient Chinese philosophy of the ‘butterfly dream,’ which questions the uncertainty of human perception to differentiate what’s real and what’s not.
How does Sister Paxton expose Mr. Reed?
Sister Paxton just saw her closest friend die, and the timid and scared girl finally breaks through her inhibitions of letting a man dictate her beliefs and intelligence. She believes that just like religion, the simulation hypothesis is also not a topic that can be tested practically. Paxton now knows that the Prophet didn’t actually die, but Reed only replaced the dead Prophet with a similar figure. Just like Barnes, she uses her rationale to find a hidden door under the table, where the bodies could have been switched while they were distracted.
She also explains that the metal inside Barnes’ body is not a microchip, but a birth control implant. Reed knows his ruse is not working, but he still asks Paxton to go down the tunnel to find out if there’s actually a dead body or not. She does find the dead body, only to look up and see Reed locking her up once again. Paxton gathers her courage and starts to explore the tunnels, only to find doors and rooms full of occult symbols, and satanic practices. The nonbeliever old man surely believes in occult rituals, and it all becomes clear to Paxton when she opens a door that leads to a cold room full of moribund women locked in cages.
The final act of the movie reveals that Paxton is only standing here because Reed wants her to. From returning their padlock key in the wrong coat to letting them suffer in the basement, the one true religion for Mr. Reed is ‘control.’ Reed claims that religion is nothing but a system that controls the masses, and his version is nothing but entrapping religious preachers in his maze-like house and repeating the cycle, killing one, and capturing another.
Who survives Mr. Reed’s house of horror?
After executing his near-perfect plan once again, just when he begins to get cocky about it, Paxton stabs his throat with the letter opener and runs away. Unable to find an exit, Sister Paxton makes her way back to the basement, only to get stabbed by a wounded Mr. Reed. As they both lie on the ground, Reed is the one who’s struggling more to live another day.
He asks Paxton to pray for him, and Paxton tells him that she once conducted an experiment based on people who received prayers and who didn’t. The results were as clear as daylight, that praying doesn’t work. Sister Paxton knows even though it’s irrelevant, praying is a beautiful thing that helps people. Reed crawls to her as she starts praying, and voila, the supposedly dead Sister Barnes kills him with the nailed wood. She had one last push left in her, and she used it to save Paxton.
At the end of “Heretic,” Paxton finds her way out of the house, and she sits in a snowy field to find a butterfly on her hands. But the butterfly soon disappears, leaving us wondering if it’s real or not. Now this can be interpreted in multiple ways: it can either be Paxton imagining a butterfly; or a sign that she herself hasn’t actually survived, and just like the ancient Chinese philosopher, she’s stuck between the paradox of if she herself is the butterfly. The directors have willingly left the butterfly sequence to allow the audience to come up with their own interpretations, and just like religion and faith, it’s up to you to believe what’s real and what’s not.
