Losing their religion
HERETIC DIRECTORS SCOTT BECK AND BRYAN WOODS ON CRAFTING THEIR CONTROVERSIAL HORROR
WORDS CHRIS HEWITT
WHEN SCOTT BECK and Bryan Woods —the writing/directing duo known simply as Beck/ Woods —wrote their new movie, the excellent thriller Heretic, they knew that it was likely to piss off a whole lot of people. Because, as the title suggests, it was a film tackling the very concept of religion, as two young Mormon missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) find themselves challenged, philosophically and physically, by a man called Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant), a sinister scholar who claims to have found the One True Religion. And when you tackle religion, you run the risk of offending somebody. But even they didn’t think they would annoy John Landis.
“Less than 48 hours ago, we were lucky enough to sneak into the Masters Of Horror dinner that Mick Garris hosts every year,” says Woods. “John Landis came to our table and was roasting us about the last 15 minutes of the movie. He was unloading on us, and there was part of us that was like, ‘Wow, this is really surreal.’ And part of us was like, ‘This is so great.’ We really wanted to make something people will talk about and have a fierce take on what the final 15 means to them.”