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Two Mormon missionaries go into the woods and are sure of a big surprise when they call on a seemingly peaceful cottage in Heretic.
A24’s horror thriller — which premieres in Special Presentations at Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on Sunday — is the latest film from ascendant writer-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, and audiences will be pleasantly surprised to learn the actor playing the diabolical Mr Reed, who welcomes the unsuspecting young women into his home for a terrifying game of cat-and-mouse, is none other than Hugh Grant.
Mr Reed is the latest addition to a revelatory phase in Grant’s career that has seen the UK superstar shrug off his bumbling romantic comedy persona from the 1990s and 2000s in favour of murderers (HBO’s The Undoing), fantasy epic scoundrels (Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves), hopelessly vain, scheming actors (Paddington 2) and an Oompa Loompa (Wonka).
“Hugh is certainly having a renaissance”
“Hugh is certainly having a renaissance and we’re so grateful to be a part of that journey,” says Beck, one half of the Iowa-born filmmaking duo who cut their teeth making stop-motion action-figure spectacles as pre-teens and high-school homages to Paul Thomas Anderson before their breakout six years ago as co-writers of A Quiet Place with John Krasinski.
“When we saw Four Weddings And A Funeral, we were too young to understand the idiosyncratic nature of that movie and Richard Curtis’s work, but there was this standout performance by Hugh Grant,” says Beck, who along with Woods directed sci-fi 65, starring Adam Driver, and slasher horror Haunt.
“Heretic is a conversation about what the one true religion may or may not be,” notes Woods, who says the filmmakers are intrigued by the power of faith and had wanted to address it in a film for years. “Our references were Inherit The Wind, Stanley Kramer’s classic starring Spencer Tracy, and Robert Zemeckis’s Contact. We wanted to have an actual conversation about religion, but set it in a terrifying context.”
Before A24 entered the frame, the filmmakers “sent the script to our heroes”, as Woods puts it. Stacey Sher, whose many credits include Erin Brockovich and executive producer on Pulp Fiction, signed up with her Shiny Penny Productions, alongside Beck/Woods and Catchlight Studios.
Then they approached Grant. “He did take a little courting,” recalls Woods. “A lot of A-listers were raising their hand to play this role.” However, the filmmakers “just felt in our bones that it was the right choice”, and with the help of their agency CAA, persuaded Grant to come on board.
The actor was prepared, so much so that in his first visit to Beck’s office he recognised the baseball bat from Haunt hanging on the wall. “He’s the truest collaborator in the sense that he did his homework ahead of time and therefore the decisions on set were very laser-focused,” notes Beck.
Adds Woods: “He’s extremely intelligent and brought a lot of interesting thoughts on religion.”
“A24 was a no-brainer for us”
Once the film went out to the market, A24 leapt on board as financier and global distributor in early summer 2023. Production took place under a SAG-AFTRA interim agreement over approximately 30 days last October and November. “We had an experienced crew in Vancouver that’s been on Chris Nolan movies and have seen it all, and yet almost every single day after filming, they would applaud Hugh’s work,” recalls Woods. “We got chills every day.”
Grant enjoyed a fruitful collaboration with his co-stars, Sophie Thatcher (MaXXXine, Yellowjackets) as Sister Barnes and The Fabelmans breakout Chloe East as Sister Paxton. “Sophie and Chloe went toe-to-toe with Hugh; it was like lightning in a bottle,” says Beck. “The ways they bounced off each other just started growing over the course of the shoot.”
Numerous financiers wanted to work on Heretic. “A24 was a no-brainer for us,” says Woods. “We’ve been fans of their work since The Bling Ring, we buy their merch. They’re extremely smart individuals who trust filmmakers and have cool taste and take risks.”
As the days count down to the September 8 world premiere in Special Presentations, the filmmakers, who as teenagers used to read “every blog and movie website about TIFF”, are still pinching themselves. “There have been so many ups and downs in the film industry and we take comfort that a place like TIFF always provides a space for storytelling and cinema,” says Beck. “This year’s line-up is just another feather in the cap of cinema history, which just keeps showing up and proves it’s here to stay.”
Heretic screens on Sunday at 9.30pm at Princess of Wales Theatre, and screens for press and industry on Monday at Scotiabank at 12.15pm. A24 will release it in the US and VVS Films in Canada on November 15.
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