Why the writers of ‘Heretic’ made sister missionaries victims

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There will be many differing opinions about “Heretic,” the horror movie hitting theaters this week about a man trapping two sister missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
One subject people are discussing already is the use of women as victims in this and other horror movies.
“Heretic” is of course full of the tropes that come with the horror genre, including the evil man terrorizing women and the final girl trope, in which a girl or woman is the last person standing at the end, having defeated the bad guy.
The writers and directors of “Heretic,” Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, long ago chose female Latter-day Saint missionaries as protagonists for the genre. After the film’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, they said they wrote the first scenes of the movie involving the sister missionaries 10 years ago because the writers believed they were such a good hook. Then they set aside the project to work on other pieces of it.
The final girl trope is much discussed in film circles.
Here’s what one essayist wrote about the final girl character, virtually predicting the end of “Heretic”:
“But what makes a Final Girl, really? She’s virtuous. She abstains from drinking, from drugs and from premarital sex,” Grace Pulliam wrote. “Final Girl is modest. She’s pretty but unaware of it. Demure. She plays fair. A good girl. This is why she lives while her more promiscuous peers die. Final Girl is the gold standard, the role model for the impressionable female viewer.”
Pulliam found the trope misogynistic, because filmmakers in the 1960s and ‘70s used it to punish women who didn’t adhere to social norms. The idealized final girl survives because she behaves the way the filmmakers require, or they kill her.
The final girl trope shares commonalities with the longtime cinematic trope of the naive or naturally wholesome Latter-day Saint.
“Sister missionaries make truly compelling characters, well-dressed young women who we assume are innocent, kind and devout. Of course, they’re the ideal victims in a story like this,” said Christine Blythe, co-host of the podcast “Angels and Seerstones: A Latter-day Saint Folklore Podcast.”
Blythe hasn’t seen the movie yet, but she’s read the script and was disappointed.
“We are taking these young, vulnerable 19- and 20-year-olds who are just incredible —they’re sacrificing a year-and-a-half of their lives to do something really wholesome and good — but instead of focusing on that, (the filmmakers) look at their immaturity and their naiveté, which certainly is there because they’re young, and want to make that kind of the center of the discussion, kind of a point of humiliation on the entire faith.”
Such misrepresentations of faith and of believers are one reason so many Christians, from evangelicals to Catholics and Latter-day Saints, respond so strongly to “The Chosen.” In it, they feel represented, a sense so many Latter-day Saint students at BYU conveyed when they gave a standing ovation last week to the Dallas Jenkins, the creator of “The Chosen.”
The problem with ‘Heretic,’ Hugh Grant’s new horror movie about Latter-day Saint missionaries (Oct. 31)
How the church keeps missionaries safe.
Single men over 40 now can serve full-time missions. And women over 40 have expanded missionary opportunities.
Church leaders broke ground for the Tarawa Kiribati Temple, giving the church 53 temples under construction.
Elder David A. Bednar spoke at a young adult worldwide devotional about artificial intelligence and moral agency.
The First Presidency announced site locations for the Colorado Springs Colorado Temple and Missoula Montana Temple.
The Orchestra at Temple Square celebrated its 25th anniversary.
In response to another religious movie in theaters now, “Conclave,” our Kelsey Dallas addresses the question, “How should Hollywood handle religion?”
I previously recommended a tremendous book by Garrett M. Graff, “The Only Plane in the Sky,” an oral history of the terror attacks on America on Sept.11, 2001. I’m now reading his new book, “When the Sea Came Alive: An Oral History of D-Day,” and it is a terrific window into the minds of the planners, the soldiers and the civilians. I’ve read much about World War II, but here’s one detail I didn’t know: U.S. automakers built 3 million cars in 1941. After Pearl Harbor, they built only 139 more through the end of the war, as they switched over to making planes, tanks and other war necessities.