Heretics

I'm all for "found footage" horrors - Cloverfield and the Paranormal series being a few that did it to a standard that at least held merit in the horror genre for many. This, though, is a shoe string budget, amateur YouTube (at best) level production - heap of steaming garbage.

Upon viewing I'm too mentally fatigued to even begin to pull apart this movie in any meaningful way. Please do not waste your time watching this, unless you like poorly written plots, awful dialogue and a significant level of continuous on screen screaming. How they roped Eric Roberts to be in this film I simply cannot fathom. There's hope for us all in the world of film production, this is very much the pudding and the proof.

A bunch of teenagers are hunted by a religious cult.

No motivation is given for people to be in this stupid cult. "Let me choose something hideously monstrous for no apparent reason."

The worst occult horror is always written by people who clearly have no actual interest in the occult itself. Oh, if you're into occult horror and you got somehow tricked into watching this, it's Lilith they worship, apparently.

Instead, here we're going through found footage calisthenics: a bingo card of genre tropes without any particular reason to be engaged in the non-existent plot. There's nothing fundamentally likable or despicable about the characters, so you can neither root for them, nor enjoy their deaths for being evil or irritating.

This movie ticked me off for its essential laziness. The opening sequence suggests we might be in for some kind of analog horror thing, but, no, it's just a bunch of analog-ish titles thrown together for no apparent purpose. Maybe it's supposed to mimic the old in-camera titling features, which brings me to something else which absolutely drives me nuts.

There's something utterly risible about the characters insistence on holding their stupid cell phones up to film everything that is happening, as it happens. For some reason, this is not something I tend to notice in found footage films, but here, all I can think of is: put down the camera you nauseating stereotypes. They should get Ash from the Evil Dead films to do the commentary on this film -- not Bruce Campbell, but the character -- Ash -- to just roast these idiots alive.

Case in point: The first murder happens with an axe and the teenagers (always this age bracket) freak out, but then -- in full knowledge that someone has come to butcher them, just leave the axe at the murder scene, running off unarmed like a bunch of jabronies.

Can you imagine being defenseless against some unseen killer lurking in the shadows and, seeing a perfectly good axe right in front of you, just leaving it there? Because I can't.

Have these people never played a single video game? When you encounter an axe, you PICK IT UP, you witless gigglemuppets.

This is just awful in every way. Not even entertaining in a "so bad it's good" kind of way.

Just lazy.

The cast is alright I guess.

Eugh.

Needless to say that I had never even heard about this 2024 horror movie titled "Heretics", from writer Ryan Ebert and director Jose Prendes, prior to sitting down here in 2025 to watch it. I opted to watch it solely because it was a horror movie that I had not already seen nor heard about, and the fact that I am a big fan of all things horror.

Now, had I known beforehand that "Heretics" was a 'found footage' movie, I would never even have given it the time of day. I absolutely abhor the pathetic 'found footage' type of movies. I mean, why invest your time, money or effort in a movie that you could just as easily have filmed yourself with your own digital video camera? Plus, I just find the whole subgenre of horror known as 'found footage' to be a massive waste of time.

Then there was the fact that this was a movie made by The Asylum. So yeah, that wasn't really something enticing that spoke in favor of the movie. But in all fairness, every now and again in a blue moon then The Asylum do churn out a good movie. But with the only "big" name on the cast list in this movie being Eric Roberts, then I wouldn't bet any money on this being a good movie, especially not since it was a 'found footage' movie on top of that.

Writer Ryan Ebert put together a script and storyline that proved dull and devoid of entertainment value. I zoned out a mere 30 minutes into the ordeal, and the movie just became background noise. The narrative was rubbish and the characters were one-dimensional and just lacking personalities and traits.

Of the entire cast ensemble, I was only familiar with Eric Roberts, Scott Mazzapica and Shelby Wright, and it is not like Eric Roberts's presence in movies really do much of anything to lift up a movie, as his performance is the same soulless and monotonous one that he does in every single movie that he is in. I was only familiar with Scott Mazzapica and Shelby Wright as I had just recently sat through the 2025 movie "Morgan: Killer Doll", in which both of them starred. The acting performances in the movie were actually not bad, nor were they particularly memorable. But then again, the actresses and actors virtually had nothing wholesome to work with.

Suffice it to say that the movie's cover over-sold the movie by a landslide. The movie's cover was actually good, but the contents of the actual movie, well, not so much.

My rating of director Jose Prendes's 2024 movie "Heretics" lands on a generous one out of ten stars. Another case of pure gold from The Asylum.