Heretic-- My take on the movie with spoilers!

 Plot: Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton find themselves trapped in the house of a strange man who intends to play a dangerous game with them.

Quick Movie Review

A few minutes into the movie, and you will wonder if you are watching a discourse on religion.

But Heretic is much more than that. While it is primarily a debate on religion, it soon takes an ominous turn that asserts itself as a horror movie.

Hugh Grant easily sidesteps from his former stereotypical roles of a bumbling romance hero into a sinister villain.

His cunning and nefarious intentions take you by surprise, and towards the end, you will enjoy his characterization if nothing else.

Heretic isn't an easy watch, and Will require some patience, but the story itself makes it worth a watch. As well as Hugh Grant's top-notch acting.

HERETIC Movie Plot

Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton are sitting on a bench, discussing an adult movie. Sister Paxton goes into great detail about what she saw.

The two of them are Mormon missionaries who visit people in their homes, hoping to convert them.

As they are waiting to cross the road, they notice a group of girls and comment about their frivolous ways. They approach the sisters and ask for a picture. The two pose only for the girls to pull a mean prank on Sister Paxton and pull down her skirt to see if she wears magic underwear.

Sister Paxton feels humiliated and cries silently. Sister Barnes has nothing to say to her.

They head to a big house and lock their bicycles at the gate.

They knock on the door, and it is answered by Mr Reed. He is his charming self, and the girls find him harmless but insist that when they come inside to talk about religion, they Mrs Reed will also be present.

Mr Reed assures them that she is inside baking a pie. They present him with a pamphlet, but he already has one. Yet, he takes another.

Since it is raining heavily, he invites them inside and then takes their coats after getting their names.

The girls look around the house, and Barnes is especially mesmerised by a moth.

Mr Reed returns with a tray that has drinks for them and a candle.

He tells them that his wife is really shy and prefers staying in the kitchen to complete her baking.

The girls can smell the pie and can't wait to eat it.

The three get talking about a variety of topics, namely Mormons, and fast food. Barnes refuses to talk about Taco Bell and Mr. Reed doesn't push. He notices a tiny scar on Barnes' arm.

Then, when he asks about their families, he misunderstands when Barnes talks about her father. He thinks he heard about pie, but she was talking about her father suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease.

Paxton talks about turning into a butterfly after she dies and then sitting on her loved one's hands to let them know it is her. You may guess that Paxton may be the one dying. Does she, though?

The girls are starting to feel uncomfortable and want to see Mrs Reed.

Mr Reed picks up their glasses, the ones that they didn't even touch, but leaves the candle on the table. He does extinguish the flame, though.

Barnes looks around, and her eyes fall on the candle. She notices that the candle is blueberry pie scented. She grows alarmed and tells Paxton that they need to leave.

Since Mr Reed is taking so much time, they deduce he is not up to no good.

They try to leave through the front door and find it locked. They also realize they don't have the key to their bicycle lock because it was in their jackets that Mr Reed took.

When Mr Reed returns, they make up an excuse about having to leave  urgently. Barnes pretends to even receive a call. Mr Reed admits that the front door will not open because it is on a timer and will open tomorrow.

However, they can leave through the back.

The girls follow Mr Reed to his study. There are two doors there.

The girls plead with him to let him go, now certain that he may not have good intentions for them. Mr Reed tells them he does not intend to stop them and they can leave. But they will have to choose which door to go through.

On one, he scribbles Belief and on the other Disbelief.

He questions their belief and the choices they will have to make.

He puts on a record and asks them if they have heard this song before. Both of them reply in the negative.

He tells them they have heard it but a different version of the song, but the girls have not heard that either.

Mr Reed then brings out a board game, Monopoly. He states that this game was based on an older game called the Landlords game. He then takes out updated monopoly board games and sets them alongside religious books.

His point is that every religion is derived from another. All the religions are basically the same but different versions.

The girls understand that Mr Reed doesn't really want to convert and may not even believe in God.

Barnes opens both doors. She seems perplexed seeing what is behind the Belief door and stands before the Disbelief one before going back to the Belief one.

Paxton tries to patronise Mr. Reed and tells them how it has been an eye-opening evening and that she understands he doesn't believe in God.

But Barnes is firm in her decision. She asks Paxton if she believes in God, and she replies that she does.

Mr Reed is nonchalant as they open the door and head downstairs.

He stands by the doorway as Paxton asks him whether he is joining them. Reed wordlessly closes the door.

He heads to his study and apparently has a diorama of his house, and he places two statues at the bottom.

The girls find themselves in darkness, but luckily, they have their phone flashlight with them.

While they are looking for a way out, they are approached by a woman in robes. She is carrying a messy blueberry pie.

Through the speakers, Mr Reed informs them that the woman is a prophet and the pie is poisoned. They are about to witness a miracle wherein the prophet will die and return from death. She will then tell them what she saw on the other side.

The girls watch the prophet consume the pie like she is ravenous. Then she collapses. The girls are horrified and are instructed to check her pulse. The girls confirm that she is indeed dead.

They then look for a way to escape.

Back at the church, Elder Kennedy checked the sheet and noticed that Barnes and Paxton hadn't returned.

He goes about checking every house on their route until he comes to Mr Reed's.

The girls peek through the bottom of the drawer and notice a box of matches. They pull the rug to bring the box closer to them.

When they try to scream, they learn that his house is soundproof.

Mr Reed speaks to Elder Kennedy and claims to not have seen the girls. He offers to let his use the phone to call the police but Elder Kennedy doesn't deem it necessary yet.

The girls pull the rug, but the box is too big to fit through. They manage to open the box and drop the matches on the rug, which they are finally able to retrieve.

Elder Kennedy returns to deliver a pamphlet on the church, which Mr Reed happily takes.

Paxton notices that the Prophet's head has changed sides. Barnes gives Paxton a letter opener she had found near Mr Reed's desk.

The girls attempt to light matches but fail. Behind them, the prophet approaches them and mutters that it is not real and there is nothing on the other side.

Mr Reed arrives and takes the matches from the girls and lights them up. He uses it to light a lantern. He sends the prophet away and tells the girls that they have witnessed a miracle.

Barnes refuses to believe in the miracle. She tells them that she knows there is nothing on the other side because once she had eaten at Taco Bell, she had gotten an e.coli infection, and had been clinically dead for a few moments before being revived. She tells him that she, too, didn't see anything, just like the prophet.

It's a bad advertisement for Taco Bell, unfortunately.

In a blink of an eye, Reed slashes Barnes' throat. Paxton goes out of her mind seeing her friend collapse on the ground.

Mr Reed assures her that just like the prophet, Barnes will also be resurrected. When she doesn't come back, Reed uses the knife to cut into her arm where he had seen the scar.

He takes out a small metal piece and tells Paxton that Barnes had a microchip, which is why she wasn't resurrected.

Paxton has had enough of it all and decides to answer Mr Reed's questions.

HERETIC Ending Explained

She begins by telling him that the metal piece was a contraceptive device. She tells Mr Reed that he has been ranting about religion and the things they have in common but not how they are different in spite of it all.

She also tells him she knows how he managed to pull off the prophet trick. Even though he assures her there is no trick, she tells him she noticed that he has become rattled because the prophet went off script.

The prophet did die after the pie, but her body was exchanged when the girls were distracted. The prophet was lying in a different position. And when she said what she had seen when she came back, she said something she wasn't supposed to, which is why Reed came downstairs.

Reed asks her where she thinks the other body is, and Paxton thinks there must be a trapdoor somewhere.

She manages to find it, opens it, and goes downstairs. Sure enough, the Prophet's body is there.

Reed joins her and keeps saying that he did all this so that the girls can understand that there is only one true religion.

Paxton says she knows what it is. As Mr Reed leads her to another room, she tells him that it has all been about control. He wasn't letting the girls make choices. He was controlling and manipulating them into making choices he wanted them to.

Reed lets her into a room full of cages containing "prophets." No doubt they were all missionaries, which is why Reed had pamphlets on the church.

Paxton promises to help them. Reed continues to taunt her and ends up asking if she is wearing magic underwear.

The humiliation is still fresh in her mind, which irks Paxton to the point that she uses the letter opener to slash Reed's throat.

She tries to make a run for it, but Reed manages to get her with a letter opener, too.

Paxton collapses, and as they are both bleeding, Reed asks her to pray.

Paxton, realizing he is probably mocking her, tells her that it doesn't matter whether prayers work or not. It is an act of kindness when you pray for someone else.

So she does pray for him. Reed may or may not have been touched by her gesture. We never find out because just as he is crawling towards her, he is smacked in the head with a board that has nails sticking out of it.

It's Barnes. Somehow, she managed to come alive for a few seconds to help her friend.

She then dies in Paxton's arms.

Paxton manages to get up and go to the diorama where she knows there will be a key. Turns out her instincts are completely right. She manages to get outside and kneel .

The sun is up, and a butterfly flits by and sits on her hand. It then flies away.

Maybe it was Barnes?

The movie ends. Hopefully, Paxton calls for help to keep her promise to save the other women trapped in the basement.

My Take On The Movie

Heretic is a must-watch movie for all horror fans. Yes, it may seem preachy at times, but it is worth seeing a cunning debate on religion that is actually handled with sensitivity.

Scare Scale: 3.5/5