Heretic

 

Heretic

Writers & Directors ~ Scott Beck, Bryan Woods

2024, USA-Canada

Stars ~ Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East

 

It’s obviously Hugh Grant’s tour-de-force, but Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East are just as impressive. All three could have been 2D and that would have served the purpose of a Fun Thriller, but Beck and Woods script is more interested in these characters struggling with their beliefs. They are all trying to impose their faith on one another, but it’s the girls that are seemingly aware of the flaws in their Faith and absorb them.

 

Beck and Woods’ script goes through Gothicism, philosophy, twistiness, social commentary, Escape Room dilemmas, parlour games, clues and straight-up horror motifs (what’s in the basement?). It’s all to the power of keeping the audience on their toes through speeches on Monopoly and theism. It’s a bold film that halfway through tells the audience to settle down to hear a lecture of derivations and reiterations (which is fascinating).

 

Grant pulls out the Goofy Britishness to winning effect, but he conveys something frighteningly lost deep within his character, something that makes him a mansplainer of the most toxic kind. It’s a self-aware performance that says, “All this charm? It’s a mask.” His character is one of those people that hold you hostage and batter you down with passive-aggressiveness and the righteousness of their (conspiracy) theories under the guise of having some salient points and criticisms. And moving goalposts where necessary. And in the age of toxic social media interactions, this feels a particularly zeitgeisty villainy.

 

Yet ‘Heretic’s aim is also obviously for genre pleasure – whether mystery or horror or whatever – so it never feels preachy or slacking. Even so, it’s the debates that are the strength – it’s very talky. Of course, it has a cast that can keep up, from Grant’s posh boy passive aggressive menace to Thatcher and East’s fully believable and sympathetic Mormon girls. Their vulnerability and ordinary is tangible. There’s a criticism of trying to forcibly impose your view upon others under the facade of debate, a criticism of evangelism, and if the ultimate effect is fun over disturbance that’s why it’s attracted allegations of shallowness. Even so, that’s also surely going to propel it as a cult favourite.

The First Omen

 

Director ~ Arkasha Stevenson

Writers ~ Tim Smith, Arkasha Stevenson, Keith Thomas

2024,     United States-Italy-Serbia-Canada

Stars ~ Nell Tiger Free, Ralph Ineson, Sonia Braga

One of those “better than you expect” because the title implies a lazy cash-in; and indeed, its need to tie-in with the franchise is its most groansome feature. That, and some uninteresting-unnecessary jump-scares and a cameo from The Nun that were probably seen as obligatory.

It has a strong performance by Nell Tiger Free and the presence of Bill Nighy, Ralph Ineson and a host of imperious elder nun faces give it a respectable foundation. Inevitably, this kind of False Flag operation conspired by these religious nutters is played out on the female body, which means the body horror here is to do with what comes out. It doesn’t go as gonzo as ‘Immaculate’, a direct peer that hits many of the same beats, and subsequently ‘The First Omen’ is not quite as much fun. It’s more to be judged on its worthiness. The hysterical bombast of the original ‘Omen’ exemplified by Jerry Goldsmith’s iconic score implied a horror in-joke, a satire even, of religion’s self-seriousness, which is also something the immediate sequels missed out on. The brutalisation and manipulation of women is scary, but not so much else, for aside from the playfulness of the opening, we don’t really get the ‘Final Destination’-style elaborate death set-pieces for audience-pleasing yuks either.

Mostly sustained by beautiful compositions by Arkasha Stevenson with some pleasingly offbeat music choices that promise much, but as we know where it’s going it doesn’t have enough surprises or the set-pieces to make it more than impressively mounted and better than you expect.