For decades, Hugh Grant was the ideal romantic-comedy heartthrob, so there’s something darkly subversive about casting him as a religiously minded psychopath who preys upon women in Heretic, a delightfully deviant new film that mixes theology, torment, and terrifying twists. Turning the loveable actor into a figure of Machiavellian malevolence proves a surprisingly satisfying feat, and credit for it goes to the writing/directing team of Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, who with their latest feature establish themselves as Hollywood’s preeminent horror duo.
A taut thriller that revolves around questions of faith and masks its monster’s true intentions to unsettling results, it’s an impressive genre contraption, building tension so gradually, and for so long, that it’s almost impossible to know which way it’s headed. (Heretic hits theaters Nov. 8.) Orchestrated with pinpoint precision as it toys with issues of belief, authorship, and appearances, the film keeps one guessing to the end, even as it revels, from the start, in Grant’s particular brand of cheery wickedness.
The story of two Mormon missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) who find themselves pitted against Mr. Reed (Grant), a single man who’s lured them to his home under the pretense that he’s interested in learning about the Church of Latter-Day Saints, Heretic stimulates the mind as it rattles the nerves.
For Beck and Woods, it’s proof that they know how to generate suspense in smart, unexpected ways. Having burst onto the mainstream scene with their original screenplay for 2018’s A Quiet Place, and confirmed their behind-the-camera bona fides with 2023’s 65, the filmmaking pair demonstrate impressive command of both tone and rhythm with their newest nightmare, assuredly developing their scenario while patiently ratcheting up its stakes and scariness. At the same time, they amplify unease from turning innocuous and beloved elements on their head, be it blueberry pie, the game of Monopoly, or Grant himself, an endearing figure who, in this context, is clearly not to be trusted.
An elaborate game of God, the Devil, and the root of all religion, Heretic is a genuine horror standout. Following its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and ahead of its theatrical release, we spoke with Beck and Woods about making Grant creepy, playing with piety and blasphemy, and good-naturedly mocking modern cinema’s own holy bible: Star Wars.
Obviously, the most important thing to ask is: What was your direction regarding Hugh Grant’s Jar Jar Binks impersonation?
Woods: [Laughs] It’s funny—you don’t really direct Hugh with Jar Jar. We showed the movie very early on in the editing process to a filmmaker we admire, David Lowery. He was like, man, I love the idea that Hugh’s probably never seen Star Wars: Episode 1 and he’s just winging this Jar Jar thing, and we were like no, no, no, you don’t understand. Hugh’s process is that he spends months and months deep-diving into the script. Every single line of the script, he generates an entire backstory, and we spent months trading emails. We actually think—and we have not asked Hugh this—that he watched Star Wars: Episode 1 for the first time just for this role. We think he had to study it, and to replay Jar Jar Binks on a loop, to get it perfectly. That’s just his process. So no direction needed. He’s a genius.
At what point did you decide to cast Hugh? And was the idea met with enthusiasm or reservations?
Beck: We always write scripts with nobody in mind. It’s a little more freeing that way. But on this film in particular, you’re confronted with the question of, who’s going to ostensibly be able to step up and do a stage play with 120 pages of dialogue, and meet that performance with an equal blend of charm and intellect as well as dark humor and some very nefarious means? Immediately when we started looking at the typical casting list that gets passed around, Hugh Grant was a name that to us was unexpected. But when it’s unexpected, that’s exciting.
It’s definitely unexpected.
Beck: I think back to when Brian and I were in the same movie theater watching Punchdrunk Love in 2002 for the first time, and seeing Adam Sandler use his comedic chops to do something entirely different and so nuanced and special and dangerous. That was something that stuck in our minds, of how can you use somebody against type? What we discovered in courting Hugh is not only can you weaponize and turn on its head his relationship with worldwide audiences, but he’s one of the greatest character actors working today.
His process of investigating material and trying to go as deep as possible to create this well-rounded individual is, to us, probably next to Daniel Day-Lewis level in terms of that type of preparation and commitment and being really hard on himself to deliver what is up to his standards. With Hugh, it was an idea that, when partnering with a studio like A24, was met with the utmost enthusiasm. A24 was so thrilled with the idea of taking somebody that’s not known for the horror genre, but known for being charismatic and really interesting as a person, and throwing him into the mix here.
Was playing against type part of what enticed Grant?
Woods: I don’t think he thinks about acting in terms of, this is my persona or this is my relationship to the audience or “I’m Hugh Grant.” He’s truly a character actor. When we talk to Hugh, it’s about character. It’s about Mr. Reed, and who is this guy, what is he doing, and why is he doing it. As filmmakers, we’re aware of the larger conversation, and those elements and his performance are interesting to us. And I think it’s interesting that, at times, some of his ticks and twitches and familiar pieces of acting are oddly latent in some of the scarier suspense scenes.
You build suspense very gradually in Heretic. How much did you work on that when you were writing the script and, also, when you were on set with actors who, as you said, are often concentrating on their own particular scenes?
Woods: It is excruciatingly hard to do that, but we had this theory with Heretic where, when it comes to the horror genre—and we’re guilty of this as anybody—there’s this usual bag of tricks that you have to scare an audience, right? You use shadows, you use loud sounds, you use jump scares, you use creatures, you use all these things for a hundred years of cinema, and they’re so alluring. The cinematic medium is so perfect for delivering a scare that we started wondering, have we been neglecting something else that’s maybe more terrifying? When we started writing this film, our question was, can a line of dialogue actually be more terrifying? Can a philosophical idea be scarier than something jumping out at the screen and yelling boo?
Speaking of subversion, there’s also the blueberry pie, Monopoly, fast food, and Radiohead—all seemingly innocuous things that you make menacing.
Woods: Our taste in movies runs such a wide gamut. We love all movies. We love a good broad Sandman comedy, and we love the elevated art-house manifestation of it like Punchdrunk Love. The two posters on your wall, Nick—Eyes Wide Shut and Creepshow—that’s what we’re doing. We’re trying to do high-minded cerebral art film meets grindhouse-y horror. That marriage is what Heretic is. We’re hoping that the movie’s oscillating and changing gears.
What was the seed of the idea for the film?
Beck: Because we’ve known each other since we were 11 years old, I remember the seeds of it being 16 and talking about doing a movie about religion with multiple characters from all different sides of the spectrum, from atheism to staunch believers, from various religions.
Because we’ve known each other, not just as filmmakers but as best friends, the idea of religion and cults, and diving into Keith Raniere of the NXIVM cult, Jim Jones of Jonestown, L. Ron Hubbard, and all these figureheads, was captivating to us for how they bring people in through their charisma and these very staunch ideas of what they believe is right. This idea of certainty, which is the biggest thing we’re trying to scrutinize in Heretic.
That’s a long time to ruminate on this.
Beck: These conversations develop over the years. I remember the first inkling of this was Bryan saying, what if we do a movie about two Mormon missionaries that knock on the wrong door? That was the germ of the idea that came up 10 years ago. Then we went to work on other projects like A Quiet Place, The Boogeyman, 65 and a few other things while Heretic sat dormant. But in the those years, we were consuming so much about all different aspects of belief, from reading atheist thinkers like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, to going deep into the Mormon religion, which was something that was introduced to us in a very earnest way 12 years ago when we were shooting a movie in Salt Lake City and we all of a sudden emerged from the other side of that production with many close LDS friends.
Was that familiarity with Mormonism the primary reason the film concentrates on LDS missionaries?
Woods: We chose Mormonism as the entry point for this larger, broader conversation of all religions because it is a very new religion. If you’re talking about major world religions, it is the biggest, newest religion. Which means that its history is so recent that it’s easy to pick apart historical problems with it. It’s a good entry point.
It’s also an American religion. It’s the only American Christ narrative in world religions, and that is amusing to us as Americans. Then on top of that, our personal connection to the faith. We felt like we know Mormons. I married into a Mormon family. I’m not Mormon, but my wife’s family is, and we felt like we had an opportunity to present an authentic Mormon depiction that’s not condescending, that’s not making fun of them. We wanted to write two Mormon missionary characters that, yes, they’re a little naïve, they’re young, they grew up in a certain mindset, but there’s a lot of depth there and they’re really smart and they’re kind of fucking cool. That was exciting to us as well.
There are plans for A24 to pump blueberry scents into certain movie theaters. Was that something you were behind—and are you worried that Big Blueberry is going to be unhappy?
Woods: [laughs] There’s a lot of things about this movie that we were worried about! We were worried about Monopoly being on us. We were worried about airing Radiohead’s dirty laundry and them being pissed off.
Beck: Hopefully Big Blueberry feels like benefactors of this movie [laughs]. It was something that A24 brought to the table, and we chuckled at it in the best way possible, because it evoked William Castle doing his gimmicks with House on Haunted Hill.
It’s not like we necessarily think every time you watch Heretic, you should have blueberry pumped into your senses. But to us, it felt like a fun theatrical way to embrace the movie’s dark comical spirit. Because even though it’s a horror film and it’s about theology, it’s also got this comedy aspect.
Woods: It comes back to these posters behind your head, Eyes Wide Shut and Creepshow, because you’ve got A24, this cool art-house brand, and then we’re now doing William Castle stunts in theaters. It’s just cool. It’s the marriage of the highbrow and lowbrow that is Heretic.
Beck: We’re huge proponents of the theatrical experience too. Back in our hometown in Davenport, Iowa, we opened a movie theater last year called The Last Picture House. We called it that because, if the cinemagoing experience dies, we want to be literally the last movie theater alive. We’re going to power it through hell or high water!
The communal aspect of seeing a movie…whether it takes a gimmick like blueberry Smell o-Vision, or you just love the experience of sitting in a dark movie theater with hundreds of strangers, that is something we hold dearly. It was the ambition behind writing A Quiet Place, to make a combination of silent film with the horror genre that hopefully you experience with so many people that you feel it palpably during every second.
Heretic is no different. Even though it’s ostensibly a movie that thrives off dialogue, we designed it to have so much cinema behind it, between our cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon, who is somebody that wanted to ratchet up the tension from a visual standpoint, to our sound team, our mixer and our designer. Everything was designed for the theatrical experience. So A24 adding the blueberry on top of the cake is something we thought was hilarious and had a connection to the film in a visceral way.
