Latter-Day Saint's Honest Reaction To A24 HERETIC Trailer

A24 have just released a trailer for a new Hugh Grant film where he kidnaps two Latter-day Saint female missionaries and gives them a labyrinth to get through, kind of a psychological horror look. As a former Latter-day Saint missionary myself, I was told I should give my honest reaction
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[@forallthesaintspod]

I would love to know what you thought of the trailer, let me know in the comments - and don't forget to press subscribe!

[@bellasara65]

Thank you for your candor and BRAVERY in checking into this. We (as members) need to be aware but not poisoned by garbage. I’m sad that people will actually watch this out of curiosity.😢 Thank you for all you do!!

[@forallthesaintspod]

Thank you!

[@pobstrel]

Bravery? He watched a trailer for a movie!

[@nickoletcampbell4657]

You're being dramatic😅

[@Eli-q1p]

As a practicing Latter Day Saint member I can’t lie I’m very excited for this film. I’m a horror lover and A24 has made some of my favorite movies of all time. I hope they portray the missionary’s in a well thought out way that is realistic. I definitely understand why other members in the church would not appreciate this type of representation, but with religious horror already being such a big genre I think it’ll be interesting to see the lds church being portrayed like this, instead of just the typical catholic horror movie.

[@forallthesaintspod]

Yes this is a viewpoint that I do feel sympathetic to, and A24 have a decent track record with portraying a realistic religious experience

[@dwilliams21]

Hello, fellow church member and horror fan! 👋 A24's movies are a little extreme for me (I really can't do gore) but I love me a creepy story! I'm also a (sometimes-)horror author and I wrote an LDS horror story (as well as some other pieces); if you're interested, hit me up, I'll send you the info! :)

[@memesouls8653]

I thought LDS members aren’t allowed or at least are heavily discouraged from watching Rated R films?

[@Eli-q1p]

@@memesouls8653 I mean it’s not necessarily encouraged but it’s really up to the viewer’s discretion. For me personally that’s not something I worry too much about since I know my limits on what I will or won’t watch if that makes sense.

[@heyitsjaredbender]

Solid video man! Great thoughts and stories from your mission experience. I served in upstate NY and had similar thoughts while watching the trailer myself. Curious to see how this plays out over the coming months with publicity from mainstream media!

[@forallthesaintspod]

Appreciate that my friend. Yeah I’m really interested to see if there is a ripple at all from it in the press or how people interact with missionaries.

[@jacobmayberry1126]

To your point about viewers of exmo channels mostly being nevermos: it's absolutely true. Just look at Mormon Stories' viewership stats. A lot of these people are looking for channels that fall into the genre that I like to call "cult porn". "Cult porn" channels like to cherry-pick the worst anecdotes within a religion's culture and history and present them as if they were the norm. It's a cheap and easy way to get views, but it's anything but honorable.

[@forallthesaintspod]

Completely agree

[@martinandersen9810]

@@jacobmayberry1126 I love this faith.

[@thatsmolwolf]

I was watching KZbin with my siblings and got the trailer as an ad. I was surprised to see missionaries in a movie trailer, but I started to get a really bad feeling, like the spirit had left. so I skipped it. Thank goodness I did.. I came back to watch the trailer on my own, and honestly it disgusts me. Seeing those sisters in peril is just absolutely horrible to me, and this is coming from someone who loves horror movies. I will definitely be skipping this one. Thank you for posting your reaction and opinions on this! Really nice to see another member’s insight!

[@Dat1frog]

You should check out the movie martyrs (the French one) it might be more in your wheelhouse

[@Arantza_Condie]

Thank you for bringing Love Actually High Grant into this. 😅 Great video!

[@forallthesaintspod]

He has to be in! Thank you so much

[@karenabbott1796]

I’m a Latter-day Saint and I think too often our members and missionaries are used as nice but dim-witted characters to laugh at and are usually misrepresented in TV and films. Most of the time it doesn’t seem particularly malicious but it would be nice to be portrayed as something other than nutty, naive dopes who haven’t got a clue. There are, after all, a large majority of us who are reasoned intelligent people. I think we’re able to take most of these kind of shows with good humor, but I do get annoyed on occasion at the lack of respect we’re treated with. I think I’ll skip “Heretic”. It doesn’t seem very appealing to me.

[@forallthesaintspod]

Totally agree. Thanks for sharing!

[@alisadunn5443]

Did you know that Keutcher(sp?) , one of the first latter day saints producers of such films...this was his very frustration.

[@MissNurseNoir]

You might be surprised.

[@mylife-23]

As an ex JW, I think it's more so to highlight the dangers. I hated door to door witnessing for many reasons including safety problems. You never know who's house you're stepping into, or if they're actually trustable or not.

[@rachelbirkner9004]

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Thank you for your reaction, Brother Ben Hancock. I am reminded of FDR as I read these interesting comments: "Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough." Most Latter-day Saints are very kind AND very tough. Popular media often misinterprets that kindness as gullibility or stupidity. What a misstep on their part! & I believe that misinterpretation is alive and well in "Heretic."

[@chipsandguac2]

My take is we shouldn't take it too seriously. How many times has the Catholic church been a part of storylines? Think exorcist movies or DaVinci code. All for fun. Probably innacurate but just for fun

[@forallthesaintspod]

Very fair point

[@dwilliams21]

Good point! I think it (perhaps) "harms" actual real-life practicing Catholics less, since they've historically been a more prominent faith in most areas of the world; the church is comparatively tiny so it's easy to freak out that portrayals like this or "The Book of Mormon Musical" are going to be peoples' only or first encounter with our faith. I'm a member and a horror fan and sometimes-horror writer who thinks horror can be a great way to illuminate the power of real faith, so it's cool to see your take. :)

[@igoldenknight2169]

I hope they make the sister missionaries here actual in depth characters that aren’t naive. I’m hoping that they escape. My gut feeling though is that they will lose their faith, and maybe even say one of them is secretly gay. I also hope that they discover evidence of other faiths being victims in the maze because otherwise it would seem the Church and its faith would be targeted specifically. I can also see one sister being more “believing” than the other and they can switch in their levels of faith. All in all, they better be triumphant and keep the faith. And films like these do plant seeds of malicious ideas into weirdos heads, which if it did cause harm in real life would be awful. Seeing this I just put myself in their shoes, took me back to my mission, and I just got an adrenaline rush seeing it because if that happened to me he picked the wrong missionary because I have 100% full faith and belief in what I believe.

[@forallthesaintspod]

Learning that the actresses are disaffected members of the church makes me feel that this may not be a positive representation!

[@igoldenknight2169]

@@forallthesaintspod Darn… it would be so cool to see those characters wrestle with faith and triumphant in the end, with a positive rep for the Church… but yeah if that’s the case it’s just another predictable disappointment. But maybe it would be an opportunity for others to learn the Gospel? Who knows…

[@dwilliams21]

You have some really good ideas for this film!! I want to see your version! :D

[@igoldenknight2169]

@@dwilliams21 thank you! I’m amateur story teller and just love stories. Heretic is a horror/thriller, and there’s one thing to remember and expect about horror. The protagonist cannot survive unless they are scared (scar) by something. It must be a physical, or emotional scar. Maybe they lose an eye, or maybe they lose their mind. Either way they are traumatized by the event. I say this because it explains a part of my fear and reasoning of why they may lose their faith if they survive. What I hope, and can imagine, is that the sister in the black dress is more “disbelieving” than the other sister who may be more “believing”. The sister in the black dress may find that in the end she does believe because of the horrifying situation the insane religious doctor guy put her and her companion in designed to literally test their faith as it appears. That’s the character development I’m hoping for.

[@pobstrel]

​@@forallthesaintspodThey are acting to a script and a director so it's not their personal story. Having said that, they might have given the director details about what they experienced and there's nothing wrong with that.

[@villanelles_suit7271]

Fun fact, the two actresses who play the sister missionaries are both ex-mormons, however their families / extended families still practise mormonism.

[@forallthesaintspod]

Yeah I am only new to this fact, very interesting indeed

[@jakmisom]

For your information, we do not call it Mormonism. Mormons are something we are called by others due to the name of our book "the book of Mormon" (cause he's the one who compiled the records and buried it) and people of our faith ended up adopting the nickname. In recent years we've dropped the name and are shifting towards using the full name of our church (The church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints) since people often confuse us as worshipping Mormon (which we don't), we believe in Jesus Christ as any other Christian faith does. We are not Mormons, we are Christians and we do not practice "Mormonism"

[@diannaanderson]

Not too realistic as in our mission (Ecuador; mid-1980's) we'd say where's the wife/SO/husband/children; whomever was requested.

[@TheYgds]

The two actresses portraying the sister missionaries are both disaffected or ex-members (not clear which) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. While in some ways that can be an advantage, I'm always wary about how their disaffection influences how they judge what constitutes an honest portrayal versus a distorted caricature which may have led to their disaffection. Certainly, an all positive and naive portrayal would be similarly disingenuous, but I'm not a fan of "faith crisis" being the most exploited plot element in films that tackle religion. There are many other aspects of being religious that are worth examining in film, and I don't like that the only feature that Hollywood seems interested in when it comes to Latter-Day Saints are struggles regarding belief in the Restoration or more basic doctrines. I do think that subject is relevant, but I can't help but think that the reason for "faith crisis" being a central feature is because the vast majority of content in regards to the Church these days revolves around apologetics and discussions of controversy. This, mingled with the prolific anti-mormon social-media machine, can make it seem as if loss of faith is the most common experience for people in the Church. Perhaps that is true, but I'd like a little bit of variation.

[@forallthesaintspod]

Ooo. I did not know that. Thanks for sharing, that adds a very interesting dimension

[@riannelson67]

Hi Ben: I appreciate you reaching out to me about your podcast channel. I love how you reviewed this trailer. Any publicity we receive as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may be of a tremendous value. We can't stop people from doing what they do, but we need to embrace the good that can come from it. I love the Lord and know He is in control. It is how we react to good and bad that we are held accountable for, and your reaction was perfect. Thanks

[@forallthesaintspod]

Thank you Rian for your comment, what a pleasure and surprise to hear from you here.

[@edwinphilips5212]

Congratulations to your sister. Hope she is well.

[@forallthesaintspod]

Thank you Edwin, always glad to hear from you. She is well, doing her best, and on American soil too!

[@edwinphilips5212]

@@forallthesaintspod I'm trading places in a little over a week. I'll be sure and wave to you when I touch down in Heathrow. 😀

[@forallthesaintspod]

Hopefully I’ll catch you one of these days

[@edwinphilips5212]

@forallthesaintspod well, I will be on my own on the 8th, wandering London and trying to make the timezone adjustment, If you're so inclined. I don't land until afternoon, so Church probably isn't in the cards. I could bring you a signed copy of my book (which has a Latter-day Saint character, so you can compare how I do at representing vs. A24 😂)

[@realclearvaluespodcast]

John Major glasses as a giveaway! 😆

[@forallthesaintspod]

I’m not wrong I think! 😂

[@realclearvaluespodcast]

@@forallthesaintspod From IMDb: “Plot under wraps.” Interesting.

[@SailorGreenTea]

5:33, why did they ask?

[@Pokeplayer406]

This movie seems very dark and no light....

[@edwinphilips5212]

It's hard to say, from this trailer, what to expect. I'm not a fan of horror, but there is still room for a "hero's journey" story to be told. I'm not optimistic that will be the case, I don't know A24 and hadn't heard about this film until now. (I liked your reaction by the way. There's a dearth of reasoned conversation about most topics)

[@martinandersen9810]

Ben, thanks for featuring this clip. It was intersting. I think the film has the possibility of being quite suspenseful, and I believe it will actually attract additional interest to our faith, but I do not hold out much hope that the portrayals of these two missionaries will be very strong. At least one of them will give in to doubt like the two actresses apparently did in real life. It is sad to always be thought of as the low hanging fruit as a faith, but to these shallow Hollywood minds, that is about all we are. Watching the trailer by itself without your commentary makes it even more creepy. I think I will skip it. I love what you do. Keep it up. You are making a difference.

[@forallthesaintspod]

Glad to hear your respected view Elder Andersen, we miss you and your wife. We had some good times! Thanks for this. I hope there will naturally be some intrigue, I hope our sister missionaries are not negatively impacted on the streets around the release of it.

[@couragecoachsam]

A broader theme that I see in how members of the Church are represented is the strong, almost magnetic assumption that the most trustworthy people to speak about a group are the ones who left it e.g. exmos. I don’t see it changing given how effective it is at ensnaring peoples’ minds with cynical thinking against the Church.

[@auntkami]

I spent too long this afternoon reading the KZbin comments after watching the trailer. There was a very interesting mix of posts from practicing and former members. There are too few spaces that it seems like the two groups are willing to share. So for that alone I’m glad the movie was made. I couldn’t help but think about the variety of plots which could come out of this trailer set up. Most of them are unsatisfying low-hanging fruit. I finally thought of the plot and ending I’d like to see. I have little hope of seeing that film so I probably won’t watch whatever A24 has made. I’ll stick with my own version. 😊 Lastly, based on the comments I read, at least the one actress isn’t a hater, she just doesn’t feel the Church is for her. And someone else wrote that a Church member is a producer so here’s hoping the tropes will be limited.

[@umbrex_the_reaper]

I just hope they don't keep calling members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint's mormons lol (great vid, I agree with you on all points as a member)

[@forallthesaintspod]

Thank you, and yes agreed!!

[@kisslena]

A24 has no chill.

[@purkinje7894]

I don’t think this is an attack on Mormons or Mormonism. I think it’s probably a comment on religious belief in general. Mormon missionaries was just a way to get them in the door.

[@forallthesaintspod]

I hope you’re right!

[@jakmisom]

I feel I am going to be very disappointed in this movie's depiction of us

[@forallthesaintspod]

From what I’ve heard, I will be too. But I wonder if I should just be happy that we have been chosen to feature than the other general faiths that are chosen

[@qtip4747]

I wouldn't focus too much on the LTS's part, I'm pretty sure that's a story device to get the characters in the house. Looks like the theme is of religion and belief/disbelief so it will probably fall under the umbrella of all the religions. And I really don't think it's exploitation...it's a valid thing to explore.

[@forallthesaintspod]

That’s fair enough. One can’t help but feel suspect when both actresses happen to be disaffected members.

[@dwilliams21]

You've got a point--where else in modern society do two young women have a reason to enter a stranger's house? Storywise, it's not an unreasonable setup. Plus, the rainstorm is (again, storywise) a contributing factor for them being eager to get in (and not questioning where the wife is at that moment).

[@dwilliams21]

I'm a church member who is also a horror fan and clicked on the original trailer out of curiosity. I quickly wound up here! Gotta say: I'm enjoying Hugh Grant's villain era (Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, anyone?). In another timeline, he would have made a great Gilderoy Lockhart; he's able to exude a perfect mix of smarm and Things Going Deeply Wrong. I think the reveal of a MAZE in the house is incredibly intriguing--but I fear this will end up a slasher film (Saintsploitation film?) where the girls are brutalized. Another commenter mentioned "Oh, it turns out one will be gay" and, yeah, unfortunately, that seems a likely possibility as well in this era of filmmaking. But I like to be optimistic. The idea that they're just being observed makes me hopeful that it will be more psychological horror than gory. I'm just tired of the trope of "all religion is evil and/or ineffective". It's everywhere and it's annoying! I am an LDS author who writes horror from time to time (not under this name). Since so many mainstream media portrayals want to subvert our faith/religious faith in general, I wrote an LDS horror short story that was grounded in real life--the main character is a construction worker, so when things get real, he does not exclaim, "Oh, my giddy aunt!"--,but still portrayed our faith as a viable way to combat Actual Evil. (If you think about the history of horror stories, this shouldn't be revolutionary--in the O.G. DRACULA, where they're fighting the vampire with sacred Communion wafers!) However, even if you search for my story by its title with my author name, Amazon won't pull it up on the search results, so unfortunately it's likely to remain invisible even to the LDS audience that might be interested in it! (If you, Brother Ben, would like a copy, reply here and I'll send an e-copy along). (Also: DANG those girls nailed the perky voices.)

[@forallthesaintspod]

I loved D&D - I thought it was done brilliantly!

[@pobstrel]

Judging someone because of their choice of glasses frames? Could say the same about you!

[@forallthesaintspod]

It is a film, commenting on a creative decision to style him like that. Everything is intentional to create a character.

[@sweetandsavoury]

Oh dude relax its a horror movie end of story

[@forallthesaintspod]

I feel pretty relaxed 😎

[@dustinthewind20]

I’m personally not interested. A24 films are deep movies but they still have a very let’s say progressive background and I can see them putting a lot of negativity towards not just our church but all Christian faiths. So it’s a no for me. Plus it hits a little too close to home. I was followed home on my mission and this type of scenario does happen. Lucky my companion and I were fine but others not. I guess you could say it can bring awareness to being careful when you enter homes and the mission rules are there for a reason but I don’t need to watch a horror film to understand that. The Saratov approach is a much better representation of how this situation and faith works because it’s a true story instead of some Hollywood studio that makes strong r rated films. In England that would be a rating of 18+.

[@forallthesaintspod]

You’re right. I think this may be a general L for wider religion.

[@mygreatestdayever]

Ugh. I hope the film fails miserably. Im not a fan of horror / suspense films anyway.

[@forallthesaintspod]

Me neither!

[@beatewright6832]

I think this is evidence that the devil works hard with all kind of ways to fight against Christ's church and many members are affected by this! I hope and pray that this doesn't scare sister missionaries from serving a mission! 🙏 and that gives some people ideas to scare our dear sister missionaries! ❤