A Constant Visual Feast

My conversation with Bryan Woods and Scott Beck from 2019, the year they released their excellent little slasher that could, Haunt*, solidified my admiration of them as a writer-director duo; I’m at the point now where I will tolerate a 65 if it means we get to enjoy a Heretic. The guys like to experiment. They like to try new things. I’m okay with that. Frankly, I get sick of the two year cycle of celebrated directors releasing movies that almost invariably are met by uncritical praise, so for as much as 65 baffles me, I’m glad it exists**.

Heretic was worth the misstep of 65. I might go so far as to call it intrinsic to Woods and Beck’s tendencies as directors; I would definitely connect dots between it and Haunt as two locationally dependent movies that function based on the setup of expectations and the payoff of those expectations being denied. In Heretic, that applies to a few different story elements, but mostly it applies to Hugh Grant delivering a wicked performance as the theological nerd and menacing skeptic Mr. Reed – and as such, it applies to Woods and Beck’s decision to cast him in the first place.

You can read my full essay on that decision and its benefits to Heretic over at Men’s Health.

*The film that put them on the map, funny enough, considering that they wrote the original Quiet Place and had directed other films prior to Haunt. So it goes.
**In a weird way.