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‘Heretic’ Review: A Handsomely Devilish Hugh Grant Scares Up A Storm In This Super-Smart Horror – Toronto Film Festival


‘Heretic’ review: A handsomely devilish Hugh Grant scares up a storm in this super-smart horror-thriller – Toronto Film Festival

Written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods — a key part of the creative team behind the thoughtfully unnerving A Quiet Place franchise — it is a genuinely different kind of horror, one that uses conventions from all across the genre — from the old dark house movie to the straight-up slasher flick — and puts them in the service of a playful script that makes some seriously subversive comments about the world today. From their opening discussion of condoms, sex and porn, it is clear that, though they are both devout, they are probably a bit more questioning and self-aware than some other members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, AKA Mormons. It gets a little wayward towards the end, adding some more lurid surprises in the vein of 2022’s Barbarian(and, in a way, the much more extreme French movie Martyrs, 2008), but Heretic doesn’t go full Cabin in the Woods when it comes to wrapping itself up.

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