Movie Review: Heretic (2024) seen in theatres

Horror/Thriller; not recommended for young children; violence, scenes which depict entrapment, gory scenes throughout, coarse language, brief sexual dialogue which implies lesbianism, including scenes which discuss church as well as religious beliefs.

This film depicts two female bible preachers who become trapped in the home of an elderly man with his own agenda. They soon must fight to survive as they try to escape the house inhabited by the man who has a wealth of knowledge of his own about the lord.

This movie proves a point that sometimes the movie itself doesn’t have to effect the overall rating. There have been several movies I’ve seen since I started doing this where the movie could have been better but the overall rating is positively boosted due to the presence of a well known actor/actress. This could possibly be someone I grew up watching who is a source of nostalgia from my childhood and everybody knows how I feel about certain actresses in movies, especially if it was a romantic movie and they end up doing the deed. Well, to me this movie has both of those aspects which when combined together boost the rating to a degree where it would have been low otherwise. First I want to discuss Hugh Grant. Hugh Grant has been given something of the Tom Cruise treatment in my eyes. I’ve always known who he is. I know what movies he’s played in but I can’t say that I seen any of his movies until recently. The most notable movie he was in was Notting Hill but I did not see that movie. The first movie I saw him in was Wonka last year. This was the first time I had seen a movie with him in a role. The same goes for Tom Cruise. Throughout my life, I’ve known who Tom Cruise is but until my late 20’s, I had not seen him perform in any movies despite also knowing what movies he played in. The first time I saw one of his movies was the second Mission Impossible movie. Up until that point, if he was in a movie, I had never seen it. Therefore, there is a comparison to be made as it relates to how well I know Hugh Grant vs. how well I know Tom Cruise. To make it simple, I know Hugh Grant about as well as I know Tom Cruise and I have as many movies starring Hugh Grant as I have Tom Cruise.

Having said all of this, I have heard people talk about Hugh Grant for years and I have come to the conclusion that he was something of a heart throb in the 90’s. I used to hear people say that they loved Hugh Grant and how handsome he was, (this was all women I heard this from.) However, after seeing his performance in this movie, it’s not hard to see what drawn most women to him. He has what I would call the most distinguished English accent of the 1990’s and I think most women would be drawn to that.

I was very disappointed in the performance of the two women in this movie, or the lack thereof. You see, I have a little bit of a problem with believing that two women who are together in any situation means they’re going to do the deed. This is especially when they start preaching the word of the lord. To me, this is grounds to become a situation where being a single guy isn’t a bad thing. I got all excited when they made implications to Hugh Grant’s character that there had to be a woman in the room and that they could not just address him, ETC. It seemed like when they weren’t afraid of what he would potentially do to them, they were speaking in ways only lesbians speak. I’m sorry but this is true and it was apparent from the opening scene onward where the two were sitting on a park bench recounting a sexual encounter they had supposedly walked in on but only addressed the woman’s actions and not the man’s actions. I think if they were truly lesbians, they could have at least made out a little outside of Hugh Grant’s vision. I mean they were alone for long enough for one to have gotten pregnant much less to have satisfied me with their antics but they didn’t. This was a lot of buildup to a scene which could have been really good for nothing. Maybe it would have been better if Hugh Grant was just like me and threatened them to have sex with each other before he let them go. This is actually what I thought would happen. Anyway, failing this, the girls were hot so I suppose whether or not they teased me, (I can’t speak for anyone else,) with a presumed sexual encounter, they’re looks were enough to boost the rating anyway.

As for the movie itself, it’s basically an hour and a half of Hugh Grant speaking as if he knows everything in words that I can’t describe as they are not in my vocabulary, (something I think is the catalyst for most of his real life relationships,) while the girls try to do something as simple as leave the house with a bunch of bloody and gory scenes in between and I have to say this again…..no intimacy between the two women despite this being teased several times throughout. Having said all of this, the appearance of Hugh Grant was a minor source of nostalgia for me and of course, the two women were very appealing to look it. So despite the movie being not so great otherwise, the actors and actresses within it seem to have once again saved this movie from being a waste of time and earning a complete 0 on the review. Having said that, I still don’t think this movie should be perfect either. I would say that it is passable at best.

Movie rating: 5 out of 10

Next movie review: TBD