Cinemas Greatest Scenes: Heretic’s Monopoly Monologue.

I don’t care what movie Hugh Grant is in, he always manages to put a smile on my face. The beloved acting rogue has been enjoying something of a renaissance in recent years (after years of being typecast) thanks to movies like The Gentlemen (2019), Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre (2023) and more recently Heretic, in which he plays a creepy unhinged Englishman, who traps two Mormon missionaries in his house of horrors. If anything this role has allowed Grant to well and truly shaken off his mister nice-guy persona. It’s arguably his most jarring performance. Admittedly, Grant has been trying to tell us for years that he’s a “nasty piece of work” and his evolution from romcom king to villain is now complete. 

Sure while Hugh Grant was the reason why I bought a ticket to Heretic last year, it wasn’t the only one. Yellowjackets Sophie Thatcher as Sister Barnes, who almost steals the show, was also a major draw. Her counterpart Chloe East as Sister Paxton, whom I had never heard of, also surprised me how good of a performance she puts in. But just watch how good both these young actresses are at using body language to express their feelings in particular fear, as they try to work out what kind of psychopath they are dealing with.

While Heretic lacks gore and jump scares, it certainly makes ups for it in sheer dread and psychological tension, as Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton are forced to play Mr. Reed’s mind games. They can’t leave unless they entertain Mr. Reed with the right answer(s), but it’s plainly obvious soon enough he has no intensions of letting them go. The whole set up is cleverly constructed, right from the get-go, when Reed tricks the sweet, naive mormons into his house with the promise of blueberry pie being made by his (non existent) wife. This scene alone is worth its price of admission. 

The strange thing about this horror thriller is that it is dialogue heavy, which is quite alright with me. One of the best dialogue heavy scenes sees Grant deliver a sermon, to Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton about how all religions share the same origin and how their ideas have been co-opted by others for their own gain. To make his point he likens the origins of monopoly to Judaism and how later versions of the game are offshoots, namely Christianity and Islam. It’s brilliantly followed by another rant about how The Hollies’ Air That I Breathe, Radiohead’s Creep,” and Lana Del Rey’s Get Free are also all same at their crux, again likening them to religion.