Jack Simon/Courtesy photo
“What do people really want to see?”
It is a question Todd Phillips posed to himself in 2016 when considering his next move and reflecting on the mild splash his stellar “War Dogs” was making.
Reverse engineering a solution that enabled him to make the films he loved, he realized “… these character studies form the ’70s, you couldn’t get those movies made in this climate … What if you did a movie in that vein but made it about one of those characters.” One of those characters was about comics, and that germ of an idea manifested itself into the eventual smash hit “Joker.” A decade later, with comic books’ influence on the wane for reasons from cost to burnout, the heavy yolk of prestige cinema rests on the shoulders of the horror genre.
Standing in the place of Phillips is Hugh Grant, who, in “Heretic,” has taken on his first horror role in the entirety of his five-decade-long career. At this point, Grant can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants. It’s not like he needs anything; dude is already drowning in money, fame, and critical acclaim. So, with this ability to pick and choose what he does, why did he suddenly discover a desire to scare the bejesus out of people? I would venture to say it is because there are not many roles going around right now that offer a character with as much depth as Mr. Reed in “Heretic.” The best scripts being made are the ones that can be made on the cheaper side, which lends itself to the horror genre well. The strain usually involves a minimum amount of characters and locations while coming with a built-in audience. If there’s anything in this bonkers, bananas world, you can count on its horror fans shelling out money to be terrified. So, with Grant looking around at the smoking wasteland that is 2024’s cinematic offerings, doing a spooky trapped-in-a-house flick with tangible and manageable Oscar aspirations dealing with heavy themes like religion’s jaded history and past generation’s desperate attempt to control the younger is an easy choice.
Grant is not just here to lend the film his credibility; he is at his best, effortlessly and seamlessly sinking into his character to where his role hardly feels like a character. Rather, Mr. Reed feels like the evil man you conjure up in your head when you’re knocking on a stranger’s door. He’s the absolute worst-case-scenario human you could find yourself in the home of. He is an academic, who are all awful, terrible people whom Mr. Reed represents the essence of well. Most of the professors I have come across, and the one or two I consider dear friends, willingly admit that they struggle to function outside the nurturing compound their chosen campus provides. Mr. Reed treats his home as that college campus. It’s his shelter from the world, where he does not need anybody to understand his mind or his experiments.
It is Grant’s magnetism that enables the long, dithering scenes, where he lectures to Mormon missionaries Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East). Without him making these work, listening to this old white dude argue with himself would have been an unbelievably cloying endeavor. But Grant takes the shape of your favorite, charismatic professor and lures you in with knowledge rather than repulsing you. Even at his most evil, he is unrelenting in his charming tone. Rather, he lets his demeanor, facial tics, and eyes convey the omnipresent danger. He becomes the pivot point in the film, the star for which all the film’s aspects orbit around.
Directing team Scott Beck and Bryan Woods were also the pens behind the mysterious, but not impenetrable, script. It continuously keeps you guessing in not only plot development, but also what will be the next heavy theme they choose to dissect. Pairing the slow pace with a minimalist score, everything here just makes sense. Square pegs in square holes and all that.
Unfortunately, it just can’t quite make it to the finish line without tripping over its own feet. With so much built up, I was hoping for a fresh take, but in the end, the grand thesis is a bit of a dud. It’s basic, edge-lord nonsense that oscillates between confounding and uninteresting.
But, as Phillips said, this is what people want to see. And if I want to go to a film that cares deeply about the emotions it is trying to provoke, I need to be accepting of some horror movie silliness.
Critic Score: 7.9 out of 10
Jack Simon is a mogul coach and writer/director who enjoys eating food he can’t afford, traveling to places out of his budget, and creating art about skiing, eating, and traveling while broke. Check out his website jacksimonmakes.com to see his Jack’s Jitney travelogue series. You can email him at [email protected] for inquiries of any type.
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