Heretic is an American horror film by the filmmaking duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. And yet for the first half you would barely notice it is. There’s an extensive monologue about the inconsistencies and hypocrisies about established religion and some genuine queries about the nature of belief. There’s a very funny takedown, later on, of this monologue in question (notably a blindingly obvious reminder that Horus, the Egyptian king of the gods, has a head that resembles a bird’s).

But mostly there is a minimalist cast of three people. Two young, fresh-faced missionaries from the LDS church, Sisters Barnes and Paxton (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East), plus a reclusive middle-aged man, Mr Reed (Hugh Grant). There is a downpour, and a promise of blueberry pie baked inside a warm house. Only half of this sentence is true; Reed begins questioning the faith of the two religious sisters and soon the amiable conversation turns tense and takes a turn towards terror.

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Reed saw the nexus between all religions is control, and took his conclusion to logistically horrific ends

Unexpectedly hilarious board game analogies, Jar Jar Binks impressions, a Lana del Rey reference and snippets of a Radiohead cover aside (surely there were better ways of demonstrating that there is nothing new under the sun?), the most realism-induced horror in this movie was not only that a know-nothing-know-it-all man was monologuing about a subject he is deliberately misconstruing but that he kept the women in an emotional trap, feeling as though they were unable to simply leave. Of course, it is later shown that they couldn’t have left, and the traps become physical instead of just metaphorical. Reed saw the nexus between all religions is control, and took his conclusion to logistically horrific ends.

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For much of the running time the meatiness of the horror is in what goes unsaid

Water leaks and drips through the walls and floors as the metaphor for an increasing extremism in belief, or maybe just the holes in Reed’s supposed rationality. It says something that even Reed’s initially abundant warmth and charm does not ease the two women enough for them to accept a drink from him. An intelligent, ingratiating man eager to explain philosophy and history? That is undoubtedly a conceit too good to be true, and the more he talks the less learned and more Reddit-atheist he appears. For much of the running time the meatiness of the horror is in what goes unsaid, even through a long rambling. Salient points? Sure, maybe if you disregarded all the factual inaccuracies and disregarded historical atrocities in what appears to be an impervious intellectual’s diatribe. The dichotomy of trusting in either an omnipotent, controlling higher power or nothing at all, though, is scary enough, even without taking into account the fact that the missionaries already know how to placate and work around a man that spews inventive theological torment in an attempt to scare them.