Aahana Swrup
‘Heretic’ is a unique horror film in which the directorial duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods equip conversations around religious ideas to deliver an entrapping story about faith in the face of survival. The story follows Sisters Paxton and Barnes, two Mormon missionaries who knock on Mr. Reed’s door in hopes of converting him to their religion. Although Reed, a charming gentleman, welcomes them into his house with an encouraging smile and promises of pie, a different truth soon emerges.
Consequently, the two girls find themselves trapped in the older man’s house as pawns in his sick theological games. The film is a chamber piece that sources its horror from the horrifying ordeal of existence under unknown forces — paired with the more debilitating fright of being stuck inside a maniac’s experiment. Even so, the narrative remains gripping, maintaining the ability to surprise the audience at every turn while simultaneously sustaining grounded roots in ideas the population at large can relate to.
Heretic: Roots in the Religious Upbringing of the Creators
‘Heretic’ is a fictional story written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, who worked on the project without any direct basis or inspiration from real-life events. As such, the base premise of a theology fanatic trapping two missionaries in his house to further his research remains fictitious. Nonetheless, the film maintains an envigorating origin even without roots in a true story. Beck and Woods — who have previously collaborated on some other notable horrors, including ‘A Quiet Place‘ and ‘The Boogeyman’ — have wanted to tell a story about religious discourse since they were in their teenage years.
Beck and Woods both grew up with a religious upbringing, which fueled a natural interest in exploring the topic. However, they also knew they wanted to provide insight from outside influences as well as their own. While the same would have been challenging in their younger years — particularly as teenagers — the filmmakers felt more equipped to tackle the idea around a decade ago. Thus, Woods pitched the premise of Mormon missionaries knocking on a peculiar door. Still, in order to get the film’s hefty subject matter right, the duo had to dive headfirst into extensive research.
Thus, Beck and Woods took on the task of researching different religions and their complicated facets. The fact that both filmmakers married spouses from different beliefs and found friendships in an assortment of different people, including atheists and agnostics, further helped. As such, the project becomes a culmination of various experiences, teachings, or discourses that the filmmakers underwent in their own lives. Consequently, the film mines its sense of realism through an authentic approach to its complicated subject matter.
The Outside Influences on Heretic
In addition to the real-life experiences that creators Scott Beck and Bryan Woods utilized while working on ‘Heretic,’ they also welcomed influences from other art pieces. For the most part, this manifested as a subconscious inclusion and reference to other pieces of entertainment and literature. For instance, the film’s employment of the history of the ‘Monopoly’ board game as an allegory for religion retains roots in the filmmakers’ research into the topic.
However, a more concentrated example of this remains ‘Phaedrus,’ a dialogue between Socrates and Phaedrus, written by Plato around 370 BC. In an interview with Creative Screenwriting, Woods shared, “Our oldest frame of reference for this film is a play called ‘Phaedrus,’ which is a dialogue conversation between Socrates and Phaedrus. It talks about love and other lofty discourses in an accessible way and how this dialogue becomes a vessel for terror.” Therefore, the on-screen narrative’s unique employment of a life-threatening debate between Reed and the missionaries finds its unconventional horror outlook in Plato’s work.
Heretic Harvests Horror from Universally Evocative Ideas
Having established the fictionality ‘Heretics’ in relation to its connection to reality, it’s crucial to highlight how the film’s achieves its sense of realism through a central theme that remains universally resonant. Even though the visible antagonist is a terrifying man with unconventional ideas of academic debate, the story’s thematic source of horror originates from nuanced discussions of religion. While the narrative has a particular connection to Mormonism due to the beliefs of its protagonists, it explores the concept of religion regardless of specific sects.
Therefore, since most people have or have had an intimate relationship with religion at some point in their lives, the story offers engagement and intrigue for a wide range of audience. At times, characters speak about truths that may apply to certain demographics while questioning others and vice versa. As such, even though ‘Heretic’ never strives to pass any judgment on one religion or the other, it incites a conversation and a discourse on the topic and naturally captivates the viewers. As a result, the film finds its roots in reality through these broad concepts and their exploration through a nuanced lens that inevitably remains tinted with horror.
Read More: Where Was Heretic Filmed?
