‘Heretic’ Ending Explained: Analyzing the Meaning Behind the Hugh Grant Movie
Heretic is now streaming on Max, which means Max subscribers can now enjoy feeling terrorized by one of England’s most charming romantic leads, aka Hugh Grant.
Written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, the filmmaking duo behind 65 and the script for the first Quiet Place movie, Heretic stars Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East as two young missionaries who go knocking on the wrong door. Hugh Grant’s character, Mr. Reed, may look like a kindly old man in a sweater, with a blueberry pie in the oven. But looks can be deceiving. These two young women will find themselves in the most dangerous situation of their lives—and will be forced to question their faith.
As you might expect for a movie named “Heretic”—a word which means a previously faithful person who has turned their back on religion—Heretic weaves together many different philosophies and themes related to religion. The ending is ambigous, leaving it up to viewers to piece together what they believe. If you need a little help, read on for an analysis of the Heretic plot summary and the Heretic ending explained, including the Heretic ending meaning.
Heretic plot summary:
Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) are two Mormon missionaries, knocking on doors to spread the good word of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They pay a visit to a mild-mannered, middle-aged British man, Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant), who had previously indicated he was interested in hearing more about the church. With a storm raging outside, Mr. Reed invites the girls inside. They tell him they can only come in with another woman present. Mr. Reed assures them his wife is home, baking a blueberry pie. He convinces them to come inside to eat some.
Mr. Reed seems pleasant at first, but soon the girls sense something is off. After a tense discussion in which Mr. Reed challenges the Mormon’s history with polygamy—and after realizing the smell of blueberry pie is coming from a candle, not an actual pie—the girls try to leave. But the front door won’t open. And there’s no cell signal. Also, Sister Barnes left her bike lock key in her coat pocket, and Mr. Reed took their coats.
The girls find their coats, and Sister Paxton finds the bike lock key in her pocket (instead of Barnes’s pocket). The girls realize Mr. Reed went through their things. Mr. Reed calmly explains that the deadbolt is on a timer, and won’t open until morning. When they again ask to see his wife, Mr. Reed wants to know if they really believe his wife is just in the other room, despite the evidence to the contrary. He explains he wanted them to discover the candle to see if they would keep believing what they were told, despite evidence to the contrary—much like believing in God. At this point, Mr. Reed reveals he is an avid religious scholar, and has some pretty strong opinions about it.
Basically, Mr. Reed explains that he believes all religions are false, and just copying from each other. After laying out his argument, using a Monopoly metaphor, he tells them they can leave, but they have to choose one of two labeled doors—Belief or Disbelief—based on whether they still believe in God or not. Both doors have stairs leading down. Sister Barnes, who is more outspoken than the timid Sister Paxton, pokes holes in Mr. Reed’s arguments. She realizes they will not be safe either way, so she sticks with her beliefs. She and Sister Paxton both go through the Belief door.
As expected, they are led into a scary basement, where they can see no way out. Sister Barnes gives Sister Paxton a letter opener she stole from living room, and instructs Sister Paxton to stab Mr. Reed in the neck when she utters the code word, “magic underwear.” (These are the undergarments Mormon women wear, which Sister Paxton was teased for earlier in the movie.)
The girls are approached by a cloaked, frail, sickly woman. Mr. Reed claims this woman is a prophet who will eat a poisoned pie, and then be resurrected, as a miracle. He wants the girls to be a witness. The girls witness the woman eat the poison pie and die. After she dies, the doorbell rings. It’s the church Elder (Topher Grace) who is looking for his missing missionaries. The girls scream, but he’s too far away to hear them.
After the Elder leaves, the prophet has been revived. She tells the girls what she saw when she died: white clouds, but not Heaven. “They unplug my brain,” the prophet says. “It is not real.”
Mr. Reed tries to convince the girls that he can show them God, too, if they allow themselves to die. He promises they will be resurrected. But Sister Barnes pushes back. She once had a near-death experience, and says she, too, saw white clouds. She does not believe the prophet fully died, only almost died, and she won’t let Mr. Reed talk her into killing herself. Sister Barnes signals Sister Paxton to stab Mr. Reed, but he’s too fast. He slashes Sister Barnes’ throat first. She falls, and appears to die.
Heretic ending explained:
With Barnes goes, Mr. Reed tries to convince Paxton that she was an “NPC,” or non-player character, in a simulation, by showing her a piece of metal that he retrieves from Barnes’ arm. For this reason, Reed says, Barnes can not be resurrected. But he tells Paxton she will still be resurrected, if she agrees to die.
Remember Barnes’ advice to challenge Mr. Reed, Paxton pushes back. She knows the piece of metal is an IUD, not a microchip. She realizes the revival of the prophet was not a miracle, but a trick. While the girls were distracted by the doorbell, another woman switched places with the dead woman. She recited what Mr. Reed said to say, but she went off book when she warned the girls, “This is not real.”
Paxton knows that if another woman got in, there must be another way out. She finds a trap door leading even further down. Mr. Reed tells her if she goes down there, she will discover the “one true religion.” She goes down. She comes to a door, held shut by a bike lock. Paxton reaches for the bike lock key in her pocket, which she earlier discovered was planted by Mr. Reed. She unlocks the door, and discovers a half dozen starving, sickly women locked in cages.
Paxton realizes that Mr. Reed planted the key in her pocket, because he wanted her to find this room. He wants to demonstrate that he has complete control over her, and he wants her to admit that the root of all religion is simply controlling people. After reaching this conclusion, Paxton stabs Mr. Reed in the throat with her letterbox opening. She flees through the second “Disbelief” door, and realizes it leads to the exact same location as the “Belief” door.
A bleeding Mr. Reed manages to stab Paxton in the stomach. As both of them lie bleeding out, Mr. Reed instructs Paxton to pray for them. Paxton responds that prayer has been proven not to work, and that the point of prayer is not to get results, but an exercise in thinking kindness toward other people, including yourself. She prays.
As Paxton prays, a not-quite-dead Barnes hits Mr. Reed in the head with a plank, killing him. So maybe praying does produce material results! After that, Barnes dies for real. Paxton manages to escape the house. When she’s outside, a butterfly lands on Paxton’s finger. When she blinks, it’s gone. With that, the movie ends.
What is the Heretic ending meaning?
There are a lot of different threads in Heretic, but let’s start with the final image of a butterfly. Earlier in the movie, Paxton said that when she dies, she’ll come back as a butterfly, and land on the finger of a loved one. This is not something she has been told by the Mormon church, or anyone. So when she sees a butterfly on her finger—whether it’s really there or not—it signifies that Mr. Reed was wrong when he said the only purpose of religion is control. This part of Paxton’s faith is entirely her own, and makes her feel closer to her friend, Barnes, who died.
Maybe you’ve seen a theory on Reddit that Paxton died inside the house, which is why her phone doesn’t immediately get a signal when she steps outside. Personally, I don’t buy that. I think we’re meant to have faith that the phone signal is about to return. We don’t see it return, because that defeats the purpose of a movie about faith: It’s not about seeing evidence with your own eyes. (That’s also where Mr. Reed went wrong, in his attempts to convince the sisters to kill themselves.)
And what about the women in cages? Throughout the movie, Mr. Reed is performing various tests to see if he can get Barnes and Paxton to believe and obey him, in the same way they obey the Church. (Such as attempting to convince them to take their own life.) He is ultimately unsuccessful, but the implication of the women in cages is that he’s been successful in the past. He admits he keeps the women cold and hungry, but he claims this is no different than sending missionaries to a developing nation after a natural disaster.
Why is Mr. Reed doing all of this, beyond the fact that he’s lost his mind? Barnes actually figures out his motivation earlier in the film. “I think we’re being studied. I think he wants to learn something about us based on which door we open,” Barnes says. “Someone scratches their neck, he’s watching, we say the wrong thing, and he stumbles on his words. A candle flame flickers, and it captures his attention. What have you been looking for? What have you found?”
In other words, Mr. Reed is still a scholar of religion—he’s just taken it to the extreme. He’s performing tests on these two devout believers in God, and he wants to study the results. And clearly, this is not the first time he’s done this. While we don’t know where the women in cages came from, we can guess that they are faithful people, perhaps from other religions. After all, we see that Mr. Reed planned this night meticulously, and knew exactly what time of day the missionaries would ring his door. Clearly, he’s been planning this for a long time.
But hey, that’s just my interpretation of the movie. If you have a different take on the Heretic ending, let me know in the comments.
