If there is one thing most Americans spend a lot of time trying to avoid in the 21st Century, its prolonged conversations about religion. But what if you made a horror movie that was built entirely out of conversations about religion? That is the central premise of Heretic, a new horror film from A24 that combines Christian horrors with those freshman year religion classes you wish you could forget.
How far would you be willing to go to convince someone of your beliefs? That’s a good question for Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) a pair of Mormon missionaries determined to spread the good word to their new community. When the Sisters are invited into the home of Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant) – a cheerful and well-read religious scholar – they are grateful for the opportunity to bring a new sheep into the fold. But as their conversation turns dark and then darker still, the women realize that faith may not be enough to save them. Written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, Heretic is the perfect three-hander for our, inexplicably, both post- and pre-Trump America.
In this short excerpt from the episode, Matt Monagle shares how Heretic mirrored his own religious journey (and subsequent loss of faith):
"There is a process of losing faith that I felt was a long and a weird and a winding road. And there are these little elements in the performance that Chloe East gives — you double down the hardest closest to the end, right? That death death rattle of being like, if I can just do this one thing, then this identity that I've constructed for myself — that I spent so much time building my entire persona around — I don't have to give that up."
The Heretic episode of the Certified Forgotten podcast is now available to stream on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, or the podcast platform of your choice.
