The Poppies of Terra #43 - Hereditary Heresies

Heretic, directed by filmmaking duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (Haunt; 65), opens with two young female members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints talking about sex. They discuss whether magnum condoms are really the same size as regular ones. Sister Paxton (Chloe East) reveals that she recently watched a pornographic film and uses her account to make a point about spiritual realization. The banter between her and Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) is telling; self-conscious, with clumsy euphemistic turns of phrase like “doing the sex,” but also warm-natured and sensitive at heart. As the camera pulls back from their exchange we see that the bench they’re sitting on has an ad for prophylactics claiming that size does make a difference.

This scene accomplishes a lot. It establishes the basic character traits and dynamic between our two leads. It reveals a dialogue-driven screenplay, with words being almost as significant as physical actions. It reveals a playful commitment, not unusual in the best A24 productions, to test our expectations as viewers: “What’s an unlikely thing for these two Sisters on mission to be discussing? Well that’s exactly what’s up.” And it also sets up several important themes and questions. Are Barnes and Paxton other than they appear? How will the size of their respective faiths make a difference as imminent events gruelly test them in all manner of ways? Are faith and heresy as mutually exclusive as we might presume?

Shortly afterwards, the two Sisters are mocked by a group of teens that initially seem to them, perhaps naively, sympathetic. A skirt is pulled down. Again, nice visual foreshadowing: what truths will be revealed when the outer garments of protocol and good manners are forcefully removed from the Sisters?

Enter Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant), the man who apparently requested information about the Mormon faith but seems to have done a fair amount of research on his own already. It doesn’t take long after Barnes and Paxton arrive at his remote home, a snowstorm looming, for the vibes to get weird. His politeness and deference to the Sisters’ ways seem, if not a farce, a put-on. His conversational tactics soon shift from studied neutrality to hectoring steadfastness. The Sisters are trapped, not only in the immediate physical sense, but in the mental one. 

The struggle that ensues doesn’t play out the way we might anticipate (par for the course, given that opening scene). As we descend into the building’s sublevels so too do we penetrate the increasingly dark chambers of Mr. Reed’s twisted mind. Brilliant production designer Philip Messina (who pulled off a similar trick in Darren Aronofsky’s mother!) transforms the house, and its self-reflective miniature, into a wild psycho-geography of trauma and revelation. Whether events during the film’s third act work for you or leave you scratching your noggin will depend largely on how much you become invested in this hellscape of inner deception and torment, rather than in the answers it purports to fructify. 

The film’s stylized direction is wielded by directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods like a kind of aesthetic wrack, stretching out uncertainty and elongating fear. On the technical front, the sound design by Eugenio Battaglia–and, really, the entire sound department–is one of the best I’ve experienced in the theater this year (saying a lot, given Smile 2’s phenomenal performance in this department). Cinematography by Chung-hoon Chung (It; Last Night in Soho) and art direction by Justin Ludwig (The Man in the High Castle; The Stand) further redress the movie’s basic set pieces, carving out great interiorities from deceitfully limited spaces. Of course, none of this would amount to much without committed performances from the principals. Chloe East toes the right line between innocence and guile; Sophie Thatcher suggests worlds beyond the one we see, but is very much present in the moment; and Hugh Grant provides a delightfully mannered and nasty turn, having gone from foppish to fiendish in a quick three decades.

Despite its heavy subject matter and at times ponderous verbal exchanges, the film contains moments of humor and even goofiness. Without revealing the context, I’ll just say that the words “a catalytic spasm,” and the tone of their delivery, caused a spasm of laughter in this viewer. The tonal shifts may not work for everyone and, indeed, some of the back-and-forth may come across as more sophistry than philosophy, memes ramped up to take the place of dialectical discourse. Chris Bacon’s score is also at times heavy-handed, spelling out emotions in hard musical chalk that might have been better conjured up more impressionistically.

Horror aficionados will easily think of a number of other movies–prior “iterations,” as Mr. Reed might say–in connection to this one, which inverts Knock, Knock, takes a dismal page or two out of Martyrs, channels something at the heart of The Strangers, and is perhaps structured a bit like Barbarian. Is the resulting amalgamation into carefully orchestrated mayhem successful, or an incongruous potpourri? Belief in logic as the arbiter of reality is, perhaps, one of the dogmas we must abandon in order to fully enjoy Heretic.

Spoilers Ahead

A24 has brought us critically acclaimed films, like The Witch, Hereditary, and Midsommar, that explore questions of faith and belonging. Heretic may be seen as both an exegetical companion piece and mischievous deconstruction of the aforementioned. What does Mr. Reed genuinely believe? Despite professing to have found the true miraculous religion from which all others–including cults–sprang, his engagement in overt duplicitousness to make his point with the Sisters suggests he knows that story too is a sham. If his ultimate aim is merely entrapment, why the theological trappings? His behavior seems, in the end, designed to provoke confusion and disorientation rather than to express true zeal. Destabilization, metaphysical and otherwise, is his greatest weapon. As events escalate he brandishes it with an intensity that reveals desperation. Control may be the religion that Mr. Reed touts, but fear of losing the upper hand is the engine of his faith.

Then, too, for all of Reed’s barbed critiques of practices endorsed by religion, like polygamy, he himself maintains a coterie of female slaves in cages. (Are they all unsolved missing persons cases?). When he goes cutting through Sister Barnes’ arm in search of the alien implant, is that too part of the performance, or is he as much a prisoner of his delusions as he claims the women are of theirs? 

The film’s first act suggests the obvious interpretation that Reed, as perceived by the missionaries, is the eponymous heretic. But subsequent acts complicate affairs. Early on Sister Paxton mentions that after she dies she’d want to “come back as a butterfly”–an avowal of reincarnation, made however casually, that contradicts her espoused Mormon beliefs. Later, heavily wounded, she matter-of-factly acknowledges that prayer doesn’t work, citing a scientific study to make her case. Does it take one pretender to identify and overthrow another?  

Let’s talk about that butterfly at the movie’s Inception-esque end. Is it Sister Barnes, granting the rebirth wish Paxton had made for herself, letting her know that there is an afterlife and all is well that transcends well? Is it perhaps Mr. Reed, ready for another round of jousting, pretending to be meek and gentle as he first did when they entered the house? Or has Paxton herself completed the trial that Reed described, passing through the great simulation and entering whatever reality lies beyond? Or, in reverse order, has she now stepped into the dream world? Is the butterfly a figment of her imagination as she succumbs to her abdominal wound, bleeding to death in the grotty basement?

Irony is one of Heretic’s delights. Barnes, who carries a subcutaneous contraceptive device designed to stop her from having children, is the one who dies. And yet her brief resurrection, or final, shall we say, stab at life, could be taken as a miracle witnessed by both Reed and Paxton. If so, Reed’s heresy would ultimately be a lack of faith in his own fake religion. He needn’t have staged the miracles after all–but he lacked the power of his convictions. Regardless of its potential shortcomings, that’s one charge that can’t be leveled at Heretic.