'Heretic' movie treats women as props, just like its villain

Hugh Grant looks toward the camera as two female actors face him in "Heretic."

By Mary McNamaraCulture Columnist and Critic

Nov. 12, 2024 3:17 PM PT

Warning: This column includes spoilers for the film “Heretic.”

I went to see “Heretic” four days after the election. It was too soon.

Drawn by the promise of jump scares and Hugh Grant in maniacal-villain mode, set in what appeared from the trailers to be a supernatural trap of a house, I sought big-screen escape from the crowing/hand-wringing news cycle.

I got some of that but I also got, at a very key moment, women in cages. And a big lecture from Grant’s murderous Mr. Reed about how they were exactly where they wanted to be.

Because they had chosen to be controlled.

It was an obvious case of pathological mansplaining. As we had just witnessed for an hour and a half, the women were in cages because they had been systematically entrapped, terrified, threatened and attacked. But it was pretty much the last thing I needed. (The trailer for “Babygirl,” in which a powerful woman longs to be bullied by a sexy 24-year-old, didn’t help either.)

Though it remains to be seen what a second Trump administration will mean for this country in terms of economics and international relations, the cultural effects have already begun: The day before I saw “Heretic,” my teenage daughter and her friends were bullied by male schoolmates who chanted “Your body, my choice — Trump 2024,” something that is occurring across the country with frightening regularity.

This after a majority of white women supported Trump. I didn’t, however, and neither did millions of others. So forgive me if I clocked but didn’t appreciate the irony of Reed’s “I did this because you let me” lecture in “Heretic,” or its depiction of women in cages.

With our reproductive rights being revoked in many states, an adjudicated rapist having been elected president, and Project 2025’s ultra-conservative vision now in political play, the sight of women being punished because they didn’t know that a seemingly odd but normal guy was a psychopath, and then somehow neutralize him when he started to act a bit squirrelly, hits a bit too close to home.

It may not be fair to judge any film on the potential implications of an election held long after its completion. But horror is political, and the influence of various religious forces on contemporary American government — including but not limited to the Christian right — has been growing for many years. You can’t launch a film in which a man obsessed with the power of religion turns out to be a murderous lunatic intent on lecturing two young women on choice without expecting some kind of reaction beyond “Hugh Grant in a career-best role!”

For the record, I appreciated his performance and I mostly enjoyed watching “Heretic,” which, though predictable at times, sounds all the requisite creepy notes while still being more thoughtful and less bloody than much of the genre. Writer-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods are obviously (at times ham-handedly) interested in exploring the difference between faith and submission, but the film most certainly rejects Reed’s thesis that his victims chose, or deserved, their fate.

Indeed, Mr. Reed is almost immediately identified as a Very Bad Guy, who draws two likable young Mormons to his home by expressing interest in their church, then locks them in, communications severed from the outside world, for a coerced and increasingly menacing TED Talk that culminates with a direct challenge of faith.

The only “choice” Sister Paxton (Chloe East) and Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) make is to enter his house, allow him to close the door behind them and take their coats. (Ladies, hang on to your coats.)

Beyond his purported frustration with organized religion, we learn very little about Reed. Grant chooses goofy professor over, say, conflicted wannabe monk, and offers, if nothing else, a reminder that a boyish smile and twinkling blue eyes are simply quirks of genetics rather than reflections of humanity. (Honestly, has anyone checked Hugh Grant’s basement lately?)

The women are better drawn. Paxton is a sweet and eager missionary born into the faith; Barnes joined by way of her mother’s conversion and seems a bit more streetwise. When they realize that the man who opens the door isn’t what he seems — there is no Mrs. Reed, the front door is locked, the windows too small for egress — they do their best to play along and then, when things become more dire, to escape.

Both Reed and the film are obsessed with deconstructing religion, including the willingness to believe the seemingly impossible. There is a lot of back and forth about the polygamous history of Mormonism and, increasingly, the perils of believing in one religion over another when they share similar mythologies. All of which results in the women being forced into the inevitable basement/pit beloved of horror movies.

By the time Sister Barnes accuses her captor of touting a magic trick as a miracle and Sister Paxton discovers the caged women, the film reveals its own deception. Reed’s madness is not rooted in his understanding of faith as a desire to be controlled — if it were, there would be men in those cages too. No, stripped of its considerable iconography, “Heretic” is the story of a serial killer who, as so many serial killers do, preys exclusively on women.

One could read into this a subtextual commentary on the subjugation of women found in conservative strains of what Reed refers to as “the big three” — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — or even society in general. But “Heretic” doesn’t earn, or even appear interested in, that critique. Reed’s qualms about religion are gender neutral; his pathological needs are not.

Which, a few weeks ago, would have been fine, if a little disappointing. Although it sets itself up to be about something more than a guy creatively luring women to slavery and slaughter, “Heretic” doesn’t need to be anything more than it is — not every film can reflect real social horror with the scalpel’s edge of “Get Out.” (“Barbarian” was a terrific edge-of-the-seat watch, even if it didn’t force big questions about the True Nature of Airbnbs.) Much has been made about the film’s final scene, which leaves “Heretic’s” judgment about faith and justice open-ended. But I found myself worrying less about the existence of God or the fate of the young protagonist and more about those caged women.

Who were they and how long had they been there? Was anyone going to find them and free them? Had their minds been broken or was there hope for their recovery? Are we really OK with the possibility of them just starving or freezing to death?

In horror movies there are always nameless victims, sacrificed for a scare or two. There was a time when that wouldn’t have bothered me much. Emerging from “Heretic,” I felt done with that. When a film’s villain so obviously views women as props, the film itself needs to do better.

If you are going to have the temerity to put women in cages for our entertainment, you’d better figure out a way to let them out.