The script of Heretic is an electrifying battle of faith, philosophy, and psychological manipulation, making it both deeply unsettling and intellectually gripping. Scott Beck and Bryan Woods craft dialogue that is razor-sharp, filled with provocative theological debates, dark humor, and unnerving power dynamics that keep the audience on edge. Through hypnotic monologues and tense exchanges, the film challenges the nature of belief, control, and the human need for certainty in a chaotic world. The interplay between scripture and skepticism, devotion and deception, creates an atmosphere of escalating dread, where every conversation feels like a high-stakes game. Heretic is more than just a horror film—it is an existential puzzle that dares its audience to question everything they thought they knew.

Quotes from the movie Heretic by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (2024) with Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, and Chloe East.

– I heard Magnum condoms are basically the same size as regular condoms.
Which makes you think, like, what else do we believe just because of marketing?
Like, if you grew up being told the Book of Mormon is fake, you’d probably believe it was fake ’cause that’s what you were told.
– No, Magnums are huge.

– I was watching this video, I’m not sure where I saw it.
It was these two people having intercourse, um, sexual intercourse, sex, and, uh, and a cameraman filming them.
– Like an amateur porno… nography type thing?
– Um, and the girl in the video was moaning loudly, as in typical, I assume, in that kind of video. Just screaming. And then, all of a sudden, off camera, in the hallway, you hear this lady yell, through the wall, “We can hear you!”
And the couple stop sex-ing. And the look of embarrassment and horror on their faces was so painful.
And the porno-girl who’s, like, taking it from behind-ish, says something defiant, like, “Good!” under her breath, but you can literally see her soul being sucked out of her body, right then and there.
All of her dignity gone, as if realizing for the first time, like, “Wow, this is my life, “I’m f-ing a stranger on camera for money.”
And I just thought, “Like, wow, that is really poignant.”
Because, like, in that moment, I was like, “Yeah.”
God’s real. We have souls. It’s divine confirmation.

How has God shown you that the church is true?

Do you wear magic underwear?

That South Park musical kind of makes fun of us. I listened to some of the songs, and they’re actually pretty funny.

– Mr. Reed, we would like to give you this booklet, as it will help you understand the restoration.
– I… I actually have one already, but, um, you can never have too many.
– It… it tells you all the ways the Heavenly Father can reveal His gospel.

Thank you God chooses prophets,
such as Adam, Noah, Abraham and Moses.

– Uh, prophets…
– Yeah, well, talking of Noah it is very, very wet… teach about God and receive revelation, and they interpret the word of God, and preach the gospel to the world, and because of Apostasy…
– Would you like to come inside?

Sometimes, it feels like maybe religion isn’t at the center of culture anymore.

It’s so important to find your faith in a doctrine you actually believe, and that’s a very, very personal struggle.

Joseph investigated many different denominations, Presbyterian, Methodist, Catholicism. And none of them quite fit, which is why Joseph founded our church.

he was visited in the night by an angel called Morony.

Moroni, who showed him where he could locate some golden plates near his home. His mysterious translation of those plates form the basis of this.

– How did your father pass away?
– Um…
– I’m sorry. I shouldn’t…
– Lou Gehrig’s disease.
– Blueberry disease?
– I’m so sorry. I… I… I misheard.

When I die, I want to come back as a butterfly, just to follow around the people I love. I’ll land right on their hand. Not their arm, not their… their head, right on their fingertip, so they know it’s me.

– How do you feel about polygamy? How do you… how do you feel about the concept of a man having multiple wives?
– I mean, it’s… it’s not for me, um…
– Are you asking from a biblical perspective?
– Uh, Mormonism has a controversial history with the misogynist practice of men claiming multiple wives. But I am fascinated by the idea of Modern Revelation, which was used to erase this behavior from the church in 1890. I just think that’s worthy of conversation.
– Yeah? Uh…
– And what I mean by that is that we’re discussing a church that decided that a controversial practice was a stain on its reputation, and an actual hindrance to recruiting new members, and so it used revelation, word of God told unto the prophet to banish a provocative religious pillar that seemed unsavory in contemporary times.
– Yeah, I know that, um, it may be difficult to understand, um, but, uh, polygamy was a spiritual mission needed at the time in order to grow the ranks of our membership in the wake of much hardship and bloodshed.
Um… a man having plural wives meant more… more babies to help the community grow.

– It’s, yeah, it’s sketch for sure, to our modern brains.
– And it was… it was removed from the church not just because
it was grotesque or controversial, but just because it wasn’t necessary anymore.
You see, I worry, and… forgive my loud language, uh, I worry that Joseph Smith used the concept of polygamy to legitimize his affairs with other women.
I worry that Joseph’s wife, Emma Smith, was upset when he slept with Fanny Alger, their sixteen-year-old maid.
I worry that he formulated a plan to use revelation for consequence-free sex
in the aftermath of that indiscretion and others like it.
You know, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
– Spiderman.
– Voltaire.
– Right.
– I guess what I would pose to the room is my concern that polygamy has no spiritual bearing whatsoever.
That is somewhat of a distortion, I think…
The church’s own history corroborates and implies this cynical brainwashing tactic.
– Is that true?
– I… I… I’m sorry, I… I’m not sure where you’re getting this.
– If revelation by God is filtered through man and man is flawed and man sins and man lies, then how do we know any of it’s true?
– We know it’s true because of how it makes us feel.
– Bingo! That’s exactly right! That’s exactly right. Couldn’t agree more.
– It’s our personal relationship with God which matters.

Burger King is better than Hardee’s, which is better than Checkers, which is better than Wendy’s, which is better than In-N-Out, which is better than McDonalds, which is better than Jack in the Box, which is better than nothing.

– We don’t talk about Taco Bell.
– Why don’t we talk about Taco Bell?
– We’d have to talk about Taco Bell to talk about… why we don’t talk about Taco Bell.

– I vote Wendy’s.
– I could support.
– Good! Wendy’s it is. Yeah. Do you know? I’ve never had a Wendy. That came out wrong.

So when I started studying theology, the last thing I wanted to do was find… the Wendy’s of religions.
I was just writing a research paper for a college class, and I was content with dabbling.
So, some McNuggets here, BK Whopper over there,
whatever fit the mood.
As I studied the genres, McD, BK, In-N-Out, i.e., Mormonism, Scientology, Islam, Buddhism, as I got closer to God through genre and rigorous study, as I worked on my personal relationship with Heavenly Father, and I think strengthened it, do you know what I found?
The more you know, the less you know.
And by the time I was 50, I was malnourished from the fast food of religion I’d been packing into my brain for the best part of a decade.
Every sect, cult, creed, denomination all claimed to be the one, true doctrine,
and yet none seemed true when held under the microscope.
So I wondered what else was out there.

I promise you, the last thing I wanted to do was find the one true religion.
But unfortunately, I did.

It’s a little unusual to have a door that, um, locks on a timer?

You never need to feel like you have to make excuses or… or tell me little… little… little white lies.

– So which door takes us outside?
– Pff. Well… do you have a preference?
– Wh… why would I have a preference?
– Should we have a preference?

Can I ask you a question first?
Do you still believe that my wife is in the next room?
Despite all the evidence to the contrary, the scented candle,
the absence of an oven with blueberry pie?
Or have you been politely indulging a lie?
If you still believe that she’s in there, I’ll go ask,
but it’s something I want you to think about and maybe think about in the context of your beliefs.
Do you believe in God because somebody told you at an impressionable age that God is real, despite having doubts as you got older, despite seeing evidence to the contrary your whole lives?
When your father lost control of his body, did you think it was God’s plan to ruin his life?
Or did you go on believing something that you know is not true just to give you comfort because you were afraid of what it might mean if it was all a lie?
I put the scented candle on the table because I wanted you to think about the things that you believe just because somebody asked you to believe them.

– You have a really beautiful home, Mr. Reed. It’s like a church in here.
– Did you build it yourself?
– My wife built it.

– We’re gonna leave through the back of your house. Now, is that okay?
– Of course.
– Just like you said, it’s okay, and we can leave, right?
– That’s right.

– I think that you can tell that we’re regrettably uncomfortable with this situation here tonight.
– I’m sorry, but didn’t you just say a moment ago that you saw the outside of my house? So then you clearly saw that the back of my house overhangs a hill, so you would know that you have to go down in order to go out.

Have you ever played the Parker Brothers game, Monopoly?
Monopoly is currently published in 47 languages.
They sell it in over 114 countries.
♪ If I could make a wish ♪
They say over a billion people have played Monopoly.
But I’m guessing that only a fraction of that billion have actually finished it.
Maybe that reminds you of something else?
Just a thought.
This is what most people mean when they hear “Monopoly.”
There’s the pewter avatars.
Everyone has their favorite. I shall not tell you mine.
Meow!
There’s the pastel money in various denominations, and, of course, the jail.
Now, this next part is very important.
Have you ever played the 1904 board game called The Landlord’s Game?
It is very nearly identical to Monopoly in every fundamental way. There’s the jail. There’s free parking. There’s fines and fees. There’s penalties. for landing on other people’s properties, and the ultimate goal of forming monopolies to force your opponent out of the game.
– What do games have to do with us leaving?
– Everything.
The Landlord’s Game was designed by American feminist Elizabeth Magie,
almost three decades before a heater salesman from Philadelphia, Sister Barnes, changed the name to Monopoly and sold the concept as his own
to Parker Brothers in 1935.
This chap was called Charles Darrow, went on to become the first millionaire games designer in the history of the world, while poor old Elizabeth Magie
died without ever being credited for the impact she had on American culture.
I’m talking to you about iterations.
I need you to have a very basic understanding of iterating, because I’m going to make a very disturbing claim tonight.
It will make your stomachs sink a little and your hearts beat faster.
It will make you sick. It may even… I’m very sorry… make you want to… to die.
Have you heard this song before?
– You just played it.
– No, I mean before tonight. I think you’ve heard it many, many times before,
but we will come back to that.
You are, are you not, monotheistic?
– We believe in Heavenly Father, yes.
– Okay. There are three major monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
I call them, “The Big Three.”
Judaism, i.e. “The Original Edition.” Christianity, i.e. “The Most Popular Edition,” and Islam, “The Newer, “Second Most Popular Edition.”
May I see your Book of Mormon, please?
I’ll give it back.
And finally, after 800 years, this! Mormonism, i.e. “The zany regional spin-off edition.”
These are all iterations of the same source material.
These texts share many of the same characters and histories albeit presented with different meanings and perspectives.
So no, I will not accept… …that you stand there and tell me that you’ve never heard The Air That I Breathe by The Hollies, when I know that you have heard Creep by Radiohead. Oh, yes, you have. Come on.
♪ But I’m a creep! ♪
Yeah?
♪ I’m a weirdo ♪
Okay! “What the hell am I doing here?”
I know these are things you are thinking right now, but they’re also lyrics you recognize, yes? Yes?
The Hollies filed a plagiarism lawsuit against Radiohead, which they later settled by proving that the melody and rhythm of The Air That I Breathe
appear in Creep.
How old are you? 19 or 20? Something like that. Okay.
So maybe you know Lana Del Rey, who remarkably was sued by Radiohead for plagiarizing Creep in her 2017 song Get Free.
Iterations.
Over time.
Diluting the message.
Obscuring the original.
Judaism is the OG monotheistic religion.
It should, by a wide margin, have the most number of practicing members. And yet, it makes up only 0.2% of the world’s population.
Why is that? Why is the original less popular than the iteration?
Is it any less true than the others?
– Are we talking about religion or board games or music?
– Yes. It has the fewest members because it doesn’t advertise.
It doesn’t have people like you, knocking on doors, selling people a better life, a better board game, a better song.
You ever think about that?
How missionaries are really just salespeople for an organization?
The product you’re selling is an idea. You knock on my door and you sell, maybe I buy, maybe I don’t buy.
Those are the rules of engagement when I invite you into my house.
We are negotiating a transaction of ideologies. And what I’m trying to say to you tonight is that I have an idea which I would like to sell to you.
My argument is that the holy texts which we revere are just mythological iterations of stories which ancient people have been telling each other for centuries.
They’re not true or real in any literal sense.
They are merely a conduit to a more ancient truth.
The story of a savior… who was born to a virgin, who could perform miracles
and was supernaturally resurrected, was a very popular story for at least a thousand years before Jesus was born.
One of them has blonde hair, one of them’s brunette, both dressed similar.
No. Never stopped by.
Mithras performed miracles.
He was marked by the sign of the cross.
Horus, walked on water, was crucified, had 12 disciples.
Krishna, he was a carpenter, born to a virgin, baptized in a river, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven.
This little gallery depicts 12 gods who were born on December the 25th, all of whom predate the existence of Jesus.
I am sorry, but it is impossible to ignore the influence of one narrative upon another, or to ignore the fact that all these stories
iterate into…
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.
Can you imagine thousands of years from now people accepting Jar Jar as a significant religious figure?
– Beg your pardon?
– Jar Jar. Jar Jar Binks.

If God is real, and he watches when we masturbate, and he has such a fragile ego that he only helps us when we beg him and shower him with praise, and he hates gay people for being what he made them to be, well, that’s terrifying.
If there’s no God and we’re just horny, microscopic ants floating on a rock through space with no divine purpose and no hope to achieve eternal life,
well… that’s terrifying too.

“Either the church is true or it is a fraud.”
“It is the church and kingdom of God, “or it is nothing.”
Do you agree with that?
Would it help if I told you this is Gordon B. Hinckley, the 15th President of your church.

– Then I want you to choose which door to go through based on your faith.
– Are… are you asking us for us to deliberate our belief in the church? Is that a factor which will correspond
to us going home?
– I’m asking you to choose between belief and disbelief.
My own claim is that all 10,000 verifiable religions that exist in the world today are as artificial as the symbolic church you are currently standing in.
It is farce.
There is nothing holy here.
Your religious text is mere ornament as hollow and as capitalistic as these ridiculous games.

– I want to know what is going to happen to us before we choose.
– I don’t even know how to begin to answer that question if it hasn’t happened yet.
– Wow, Mr. Reed, you’ve introduced a lot of interesting points.
I think we can admit that you’re a very smart man and we still have a lot to learn.
So with that, I would like to agree that you’ve… convinced us, and we’d like to leave through the disbelief door and go home now.
Right, Sister Barnes?
Sister?
Sister Barnes?

I think we should listen to our super neat and thoughtful host and choose the right door? You know, choose the “right”?
Like they taught us in primary?

It doesn’t… matter what you say to him.
He’s not gonna let us go just because we admit he’s right.
Let’s just get out of here while our host is being gracious enough to let us leave.
I think that we’re being studied.
I think he wants to learn something about us based on which door we open.
Is that the game?
Someone scratches their neck, and 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?
If I’m right, then the only thing that matters right now is what we actually believe.
And because I think your rhetoric is thin, and your garage sale board game metaphor is kind of offensive.
I mean, you asked why Judaism only makes up 0.2% of the world’s population
but didn’t even pause for the Holocaust.
You make no acknowledgement of the religious persecution Jewish people have faced.
You just use it as a setup to a punchline about missionaries.
And then, you skip over the fact that none of this addresses Islam, as Muslims don’t even believe Christ was resurrected.
And then, you point out all the similarities these mythological gods have with Jesus, but breeze over the many glaring differences!
One of these guys has a freaking bird head!

I don’t think… that my point of view… fits into belief or disbelief.
I think there’s an entire spectrum that your game is neglecting.
So it doesn’t matter what I believe, does it?
– Sister Paxton, do you still believe in God?
– Yes.
– Then let’s leave through here. Let’s be honest and sincere
and let God decide what happens next for us.
– Okay, we’re leaving now. Thank you for all your mentorship,
and thank you for letting us leave.

From now on, if he lands a philosophical point that we don’t agree with, we challenge him.
We make him think.
He doesn’t have to steam roll us.
We might not be a physical threat, but we can be an intellectual one.

if I say “magic underwear,” that means stab. Okay?

♪ But I’m a creep
♪ I’m a weirdo
♪ Couldn’t look you in the eye ♪
♪ You’re just like an angel
♪ Your skin makes me cry
♪ And I’m a creep
♪ I wanna have control
♪ I want a perfect body
♪ I want a perfect soul
♪ I want you to notice
♪ When I’m not around
♪ You’re so very special ♪
♪ But I’m a creep ♪
♪ I’m a weirdo
♪ What the hell am I doin’ here? ♪
♪ I don’t belong here ♪

I have been shown a miracle.
I believe this miracle is proof that all known religions are demonstrably false, and only an ancient echo of something true.

Our family recipe for blueberry pie is, I think, a traditional one.
The ingredients include butter, flour, corn starch, sugar, lemon, blueberries, of course, but tonight I’ve also included some wolf’s bane and some belladonna, which means that, in a short while, the Prophet will be dead from consuming the pie.
Then, you will witness a miracle. By the grace of God, she will be resurrected.

Has the Prophet moved?

– I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you one question. Have you received this booklet?
– I have not, but I will give it a look-see.

It is…
not…
real.

We are very grateful for your passage to the other side.
Your prophecy will be recorded into our liturgical texts.

There will be before you saw a woman die and come back to life, and there will be after.
Books will be written about it. So choose your words very carefully when I ask, what did you witness?

I can show you God. If you’re willing to die.
It… it can be painless. It can be temporary.
Like the Prophet, you can be brought back.
It doesn’t have to be frightening at all.
I’ll tell you… I’ll tell you what’s frightening.
Not knowing is frightening!
Where do we come from? What are we doing here? What’s our purpose?
The terror of those questions is why religions exist.
I can answer those questions for you.
I can give you a comfort no religion in the world is capable of giving you.

It all makes sense now. I’ve been asking myself all night, how is he gonna make killing us our idea?

You wanna know why we don’t talk about Taco Bell?
It killed me when I was four years old.
Fifty people were hospitalized from an E. coli outbreak.
The kids at school called me Taco Hell ’cause I was clinically dead
while doctors operated on my kidneys.
When I was dead, I saw exactly what your prophet described.
A blinding white light, clouds, but not Heaven, a sense of wanting to return,
a feeling that my state of reality wasn’t real.
That wasn’t a prophecy. That was a near-death experience.
When the oxygen leaves your brain or your heart stops pumping, your mind
creates unbelievable things.
I think you’ve been keeping this woman on the edge of death in order to ask her questions about meaningless hallucinations so that you can substantiate your idea of what the one, true religion really is.

Did you know…
that when you remember something, you’re really only remembering the last time you remembered that experience?
You’re not actually recalling the event.
So your memory of dying at Taco Bell isn’t really of dying, it’s of the memory of the memory of the memory of the memory of the memory… stop me… …of that event.
So you’re remembering a false correlation with the experience you’ve just witnessed.

But this, this is happening right now!
That’s why I think, Sister Barnes, Sister Paxton, that you really need to pay attention because I promise you we’re not talking about a magic trick.

No, we’re talking about magic underwear…

– Are you, Sister Paxton, familiar with the Daoist concept of “The Butterfly Dream”?
– A butterfly… A butterfly flaps its wings and causes a typhoon?
– That is “The Butterfly Effect.” Common mistake. No. “The Butterfly Dream” concerns an ancient Chinese philosopher who asked himself the following question.
Was I a man dreaming “I’m a butterfly, or am I now… a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?”

I have come to a dark realization that we exist inside a simulation so advanced that we cannot tell the difference between real life
and artificial dream.
You heard the Prophet. She said, “It is not real.” You see, fire dynamics are very difficult to render. I’ve noticed this anomaly in its behavior when it interacts with simulated NPCs, like poor old Sister B.
She couldn’t come back to us, but when you die, finger, please, you will pass through death and wake up into the real world.

– I don’t think this is a microchip.
– Oh?
– I think it’s a contraceptive. A… a birth control implant.
– Huh. Tell me, have you ever met a Mormon missionary who was on birth control? Did “Sister Barnes” say she was on birth control?
– Our church would’ve made her feel ashamed about it, and she would’ve been too embarrassed.

I don’t believe it.
I’m not smart enough to say why, I just don’t.

– I think something happened tonight that you didn’t expect.
It feels like you’re improvising, trying to convince me of a simulation theory that’s not sticking. Am I right?
– Uh, are you asking me if you’re right that I am improvising or you’re right that the simulation narrative is not sticking?

– I think you switched the bodies.
I just haven’t figured out how yet.
– I switched… the bodies?
– The doorbell rang when the Elder got here. Which drew our attention to the stairs.
You would have been prepared for that. When we came back downstairs, I noticed the woman wasn’t in the same position as before.
It was similar… Her head is different. But it was not the exact same.
I think another woman who looked exactly like her came into the basement through a hidden door or something, disposed of her body and then took her place at the table.
– I see.
– And then, once we got back downstairs, she read off a scripted prophecy that you prepared for her. Except the last thing she said was,
“It is not real.”
– …not… real…
– Maybe she was trying to tell us that the miracle wasn’t real.

– But will you go into that hole and see if there’s somebody down there?
If I have to.
– Why would you do that?
– Because I want to know the truth, and because the only way out is through.
– Robert Frost?
– Swamp Thing.

Don’t go into that cellar… unless you are prepared to discover the one, true religion.

– When we first arrived, you left us alone in your living room.
We thought you were talking to your wife, but you were doing something else.
– I was.
– You took a key from Sister Barnes’ coat, went outside to unlock our bikes and hide them.
I noticed your hair was wet when you came back with the drinks, like you were out in the storm.
You did this, I assume, because you didn’t want the Elder to find our bikes when he came back looking for us.
But there was something else on your mind.
– There was.
– You returned the bike key to the wrong coat pocket.
We thought this was a mistake you made.
– Key.
– But now I know it wasn’t.
– Why?
– You gave the bike lock to one of your prophets, instructed them to lock the final cellar door with it.
– But why, why, why? Why did I do that?
– Because you wanted me to know the only reason I’m standing here right now is because it is exactly where you want me to be standing. I’m not here because I chose to be. I’m here because you made me choose to be.
– Oh.
– Because you want me to believe the one, true religion is control.
– That is exactly right. Religion is just a system of control…

– I’ll help you.
– No, you see, that’s what’s so interesting. They don’t want your help. They… they are exactly where they chose to be.
– But you killed that woman.
– I disagree. She… She chose to eat a poisoned pie because of her profound faith. It is called drinking the… anyone?
Kool-Aid.

It is true… that I keep these ladies a little chilly, and a little peckish, for which I am very sorry. Sorry, ladies.
But only for the same reason that your church goes to Haiti to give out Bibles after a hurricane.
It’s easier to control someone who has lost everything.

– You are here because the ideas of others have influenced every single decision you’ve made since the day you were born, and I’ve been able to predict every decision you would make tonight because of that.
You have allowed them to dictate every decision of your life.
They decide who you worship, where you worship, what you worship. They even dictate the garments you wear under your clothes.
– The what?
– Your magic underwear.

– Praying doesn’t work.
– Have you ever heard of the great prayer experiment?
They divided patients into groups.
Those who received prayers and those who didn’t.
The results of the study were conclusive.
It doesn’t work.
But I think it’s beautiful that we all pray for each other even though we all probably know it doesn’t make a difference.
It’s just nice to think about someone other than yourself.

Even if it’s you I’m grateful for all the trials you’ve given me in my life.
And for your path that you’ve laid out for me.
Quietly.
Goodbye, Sister.

♪ Mama take this badge off me ♪
♪ I can’t use it anymore ♪
♪ It’s getting dark too dark to see ♪
♪ I feel like I’m knockin’ on Heaven’s door ♪
♪ Knock-knock-knockin’ on Heaven’s door ♪
♪ Knock-knock-knockin’ on Heaven’s door ♪
♪ Knock-knock-knockin’ on Heaven’s door ♪
♪ Knock-knock-knockin’ on Heaven’s door ♪
♪ Mama put my guns in the ground ♪
♪ I can’t shoot them anymore ♪
♪ That long black cloud is comin’ down ♪
♪ Feels like I’m knockin’ on Heaven’s door ♪
♪ Knock-knock-knockin’ on Heaven’s door ♪
♪ Knock-knock-knockin’ on Heaven’s door ♪
♪ Knock-knock-knockin’ on Heaven’s door ♪
♪ Knock-knock-knockin’ on Heaven’s door ♪