"The Heretic" (2024) is a bizarre American film. It´s actually a kind of philosophical or even theological horror film. I admit that I have no idea what the message might be.
The main character Mr Reed (starred by Hugh Grant of all people) is a crazy, murderous atheist who captures two female Mormon missionaries in a maze-like house. His intentions are unclear, but revolve around attempts to prove that all religions are fake. Their real purpose is control. During the confrontation, it turns out that the Mormon girls are really skeptics. One of them claims that near-death experiences are caused by purely natural causes, while the other says that prayer is purely metaphorical or psychological in nature. Before they visit Mr Reed, the girls discuss sex and pornography.
The atheist arguments sound more convincing than the simplistic faith the missionaries pretend to have at the outset. However, I also get the impression that Reed might not be an atheist in the strict sense. He believes that all religions (or at least the "Abrahamic" ones) go back to a kind of primordial revelation, the exact nature of which is left unclear. It also seems that he is trying to convince himself, first and foremost, that all God-belief really is bunk. Note also that Reed has turned into a kind of cult leader all his own.
And yes, I did notice the allusion to blood atonement and the in-house *skeptical* joke about Mormon "magical underpants" (but here used by the Mormons themselves)...
"The Heretic" ends with two miracles, but these are less convincing (I´m tempted to call them deus-ex-machina) than the bulk of the movie, making me wonder if they were tacked on simply to make the production somewhat less shocking to a religious audience. Well, at least it manages to portray consistent atheism-materialism as meaningless, brutal and absurd!
Not sure if anyone really did become a heretic due to this flick.
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