Hugh Grant, the British romcom heartthrob we all know from "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and "Notting Hill," has been having a mad fun time lately blending comedy ("Paddington 2") and villainy ("The Undoing"). Grant is wicked, whip-smart perfection going to extremes in "Heretic," now in theaters after scoring at the Toronto Film Festival.
Grant starts as his usual debonair self as the mysterious Mr. Reed, oozing oodles of charm when he opens the door to his Colorado mountain home to a pair of young Mormon missionaries, Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East).
The young ladies are wary at first since the rules insist that they can't enter any premises without a woman present. "Will my wife do?" he winks, claiming the missus is inside baking a quintessentially American blueberry pie as he closes the door with a menacing click.
That alone should get your suspicions up. It's also hard not to notice a blueberry-scented candle lying about and no wife in sight. But Reed seems incredibly eager to talk to them about defending their religion or losing it. And he bristles at any refusal to answer his questions.
Writer-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, who hit the box-office jackpot scripting "A Quiet Place," know how to generate suspense and scares. The surprise is that "Heretic" is also a mesmerizing mindbender, posing probing philosophical questions you won't see coming.
Mr. Reed isn't just playing tricks on the two missionairies, who aren't as naïve as they first appear, he's pushing them to practice what they preach. And that requires more from the filmmakers than figuring out new ways to terrorize us with things that go bump in the night.
From the first moment that Grant flashes a look of icy steel under Mr. Reed's casual demeanor, the young evangelists are searching for a way out. Their captor says he'll happily let them go with one caveat. They must first pass his test by choosing one of two doors to make their exit: Each door has a name written in chalk: "Belief" or "Disbelief."
Which door would you choose? "Heretic" is eager for audiences to accept the challenge. Reed has constructed walls made of metal to cut out cell service. Even when Elder Kennedy (Topher Grace) shows up from the church, he's quickly dispatched. We're on our own.
"Heretic" grips you like a vise as Reed labors to convince the two missionaries -- Thatcher and East are intriguing opposites by the way -- that they're not true believers but shills for the Mormon payout machine. Horror films rarely cut this deep, and "Heretic" raises the sinister bar.
Reed has constructed a forbidding chamber of horrors in his basement, not just to unnerve us, which it does, but to raise the larger cultural issue about the meaning, if any, of religion in a godless modern world.
I'll stay spoiler-free about the climactic bloodbath, leaving the symbols of knives and poisons and cleansing fires for you to unravel. It's a trippy, twisted blast, especially when Reed finds his personal religion in "Creep" by Radiohead. But this provocation is hunting bigger game.
Grant will creep you out big time in "Heretic." The dreamy romantic of yore has been replaced by a diabolical presence eager to send us all to hell. Open the door to this spellbinding cat-and-mouse game at your own risk. Mr. Reed means business. So does the movie.
