House of the devil: "Heretic"

A24 have done some radical things within the horror space, some more successful than others artistically, others undeniable hits. Yet Heretic feels to me like the most radical undertaking of the lot: they've lured in the multiplex crowd to sit through a movie on free will and doctrinal deviation, the big sickos. This example of New Horror from the lawyerly-sounding partnership of (Scott) Beck and (Bryan) Woods (who came to prominence with their script for 2018's A Quiet Place and subsequently directed last year's 65) opens with a scene that recalls the horrors of yore: young actresses (Chloe East and Sophie Thatcher) cast as debatably plausible Mormon missionaries, discussing penis size and pornography in a manner that really suggests joshing bro screenwriters hunting a grabby opening for a stealthier, more insinuating script. The latter's rawest material actually has far less to do with the flesh than it does with the spirit. The last stop on the girls' rounds, this ominously dingy night, is the isolated home of one Mr. Reed, played by Hugh Grant with a terse smile and both the wardrobe and unsettling mien of a pass-agg religious studies teacher. Though Reed almost literally turns cartwheels to ease his guests' initial fears - around crossing an unfamiliar threshold with only one another and a pocketful of pamphlets to protect them - we know where the film is heading in some respects: young women at the mercy of a creepy guy. Yet the scriptural debate that comprises the bulk of the film's first forty minutes would also seem to indicate our heroines' chosen path has some significance. What we've been gathered here to witness is as much test of faith as it is a test of mettle and nerve, and even the fact these characters wind up fumbling around in the dark invites allegorical reading: this, too, will be an ecumenical matter.

Beck and Woods pursue it with craft, conviction and a giant scoop of crazy, all the things you thought had gone missing from American movies. The craft becomes evident with each pirouette this camera makes around a house designed like a boobytrap, one in which features glimpsed in passing will prove lifesaving or damning. The talky script sets up a debate and commits to it; the theological aspect isn't mere window-dressing, but as integral to the structure and action as it was to the William Peter Blatty-derived The Exorcist and The Ninth Configuration. Yet the film's secret weapon is that element of absurdity one finds in some religions and the best popcorn cinema. We may just have to swallow the notion that this cosy, chuckling old duffer owns multiple editions of Monopoly, can tell us what Radiohead's "Creep" owes to The Hollies, and knows who Jar Jar Binks is. But we do, because Grant is on exceptional, possibly even career-best form, playing a character who is at once Richard Dawkins, a carnival barker for this script's wilder swings, and a figure recognisable as part of a British comic tradition: the pedant going to extreme lengths to prove an arguably arcane point. Grant has become increasingly adept at sniffing out roles that might also serve as showcases (cf. his rogues in recent Guy Ritchies, and the dastardly Phoenix Buchanan in Paddington 2); here, he brings a rare precision of charm and gesture to that conversion process. It's the mockingly slight downturn of his mouth as he introduces an idea "that might make you want to die"; it's the pitch of his voice as he offers an otherwise humdrum "sorry for the cold". He casually tosses a piece of chalk from one hand to the other, and transforms it into a mini-metaphor for the girls' short, fragile lives. Even if you don't buy all of Heretic's ideas, even if you don't consider yourself as having a dog in this fight, such quasi-miraculous work and godly attention to detail can't help but win you round somehow. I became aware I was grinning around the halfway point, and that grin only broadened in the second as the proposition Beck and Woods make their viewers became ever more dazzlingly clear: what if the Saw movies were as fun to watch as the average episode of Taskmaster?

Heretic is currently playing in cinemas nationwide.