The new horror film Heretic features Hugh Grant as “Mr. Reed”, a lonely man living in a house that harbors dark secrets. When two Mormon girls acting as missionaries show up on Reed’s doorstep, he leads them into a dark test of their faith that could also be a test of life and death. The film’s trailers have got audiences hooked on directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (screenwriters of A quiet place) the atmospheric dread and tease of a deliciously disjointed performance from Hugh Grant.

ComicBook had the chance to sit down and chat with Woods and Beck about Heretic; During this conversation, the directing duo revealed some of the real-life personalities that influenced Mr. Reed’s character:

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“Yes, I mean, cult-wise, we were thinking of Jim Jones with the Jonestown Massacre; Keith Raniere and the NXIVM cult,” Beck explained. “All these people are quite charismatic and you go into this organization first thinking it’s going to improve your life and then it gets perverted over time.”

“Yes, he was also inspired by great atheist thinkers,” Woods added. “Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins: it’s an amalgamation of 30 different real-life people, and then you bring Hugh into the conversation and Hugh is such a brilliant mind. He also had a lot of ideas about who the character connected with. It was so much fun working with him.

Heretic Cast, Crew, and Story Info

According to the official synopsis of Heretic: “Two young missionaries are forced to prove their faith when they knock on the wrong door and are greeted by an evil Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant), trapped in his deadly game of cat and mouse.»

Heretic is written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods and is distributed by A24 Films. It stars Hugh Grant, Topher Grace (Spider-Man 3), Sophie Thatcher (Yellow vests), and Chloé Est (The Fabelmans). Heretic will be in theaters Friday.