A24's Heretic may not have a happy ending, but its plot seems to be promising a freaky good time nonetheless.
Heretic joins the studio's upcoming slate, which includes the hotly anticipated We Live in Time (which may include some major heartbreaking moments and twists), as one of the tentpole titles for the Hollywood giant for the fall.
Despite the upcoming horror film being mere weeks away, spoilers centered around Scott Beck and Bryan Woods' religious thriller have remained behind lock and key.
What Will Happen in Heretic?
Since Heretic is not based on any source material, its exact plot specifics and spoiler moments are harder for fans to predict.
The movie's story, according to A24's official synopsis, centers on two young missionaries (played by Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) who get more than they bargained for after knocking on the door of Hugh Grant's Mr. Reed:
"Two young missionaries are forced to prove their faith when they knock on the wrong door and are greeted by a diabolical Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant), becoming ensnared in his deadly game of cat-and-mouse."
Up to this point, the movie's marketing materials have focused primarily on teases of this "game of cat-and-mouse."
The setup seems simple. As the two girls are welcomed into Mr. Reed's home, they quickly realize that their host has more on his mind than chatting about a potential faith conversion.
Instead, Mr. Reed has more sinister plans, seeming to lock the girls into a game that sees them traversing a faith-testing labyrinth built in the tunnels beneath his house. This can be seen in various trailers, as the two young women ask to leave after getting uncomfortable with the current circumstances.
Hugh Grant's Mr. Reed then insists that, if they are to leave, they go out the back door, ushering the girls towards his skin-crawling basement. Here, the setup for the movie seems to happen, with Grant's character pushing the girls into his Machiavellian scheme.
This cellar room, seen multiple times in the movie's most recent trailer, seems to hint at what will come for Mr. Reed and his two guests. Some have speculated that perhaps Grant's character targets the girls as their faith may conflict with his, but it looks like it may go a whole lot deeper than that.
Throughout the movie's marketing, artifacts from various faiths are strewn about Mr. Reed's home. These include a Book of Mormon and a diagram of the nine circles of Hell in his basement. This could mean Mr. Reed is simply a delusion fanatic of all things theological rather than one faith.
The diagram of the underworld that fans have gleaned could be the most telling about what to expect in the rest of the film. Perhaps Mr. Reed sees this trail he has set up in the tunnels beneath his home as a Dante-esque conquest.
He does not seem to be actively trying to kill the young girls but instead push their faith to the brink with some grueling test of devotion.
As teased in the various trailers for the movie, this will seemingly play out with the girls attempting to escape Mr. Reed's deadly game, running through his labyrinthine gambit and trying to stay alive and sane in the process.
Some have speculated that Hugh Grant's character may even be hiding something other-worldly beneath his house. A popular theory amongst fans has been that his Heretic villain was once a devout Christian, however, at one point, lost his wife (perhaps at the hand of a spiritual presence of sorts).
In one of the trailers, Grant's character mentions his "wife is home," which could refer to her being in the house somewhere, whether dead or in some new, more sinister form.
Her death (if one wants to call it that) may have driven Mr. Reed mad, causing him to set up this so-called religious game he snares the two missionaries in.
Hopefully, the film ends with the two girls narrowly escaping their captor, having been pushed to the edge. Mr. Reed will assumingly die in the process, and all that will be left of his demented game will be the Thatcher and East's female missionaries and the trauma they carry with them from the experience.
Heretic comes to theaters on November 8.
