Hugh Grant is an amazingly convincing villain – who’d have thought it?

Heretic is the latest horror film from writer-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (A Quite Place) and stars Hugh Grant, now enjoying the villainous chapter of his career. (See: Paddington 2, The Undoing, The Gentlemen, etc.) Here, he plays a fella who imprisons two young Mormon missionaries as he seeks to torment and terrify them into renouncing their faith.

Though the film doesn’t quite land and may not be as clever as it thinks it is, it builds tension nicely, and it’s enjoyable watching Grant have so much fun. All those years as a rom-com star when what he’s most good at, it turns out, is being thoroughly bad.

The two young Mormon missionaries are Sisters Barnes and Paxton, wonderfully played by Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, both of whom were brought up as Mormons but chose to leave to become actors.