The Heretiks

Horror hits differently for children and adults. Gregg Bishop’s Fantastic Fest contribution contains scenes which guarantee it at least a 15 certificate in the UK, but it will still have strong appeal for those just hitting adolescence. Whilst witch-focused films aimed at older viewers are currently few and far between, and tend to be getting more thematically complex, this is a good old fashioned scary witch adventure. The one way in that differs from older entries in the genre is that witches are no longer automatically classed as evil. Their beliefs areas real as anyone else’s, and when the protagonists fall foul of merciless witches, they depend on a more sympathetic one to help them survive.

More sympathetic does not mean, exactly, nice. Cai (Kimberley Epstein) is a lot older that she looks, she says, and she’s certainly crotchety enough. It surely doesn’t help that she’s recently been dumped by her girlfriend, betrayed by her coven and forced to depend on random young suburbanites to fend off what may very well be the end of the world, but still, she makes a point of repeating how little she cares about any individual’s life. Young heroine Mabel (Ava Mae Seidensticker) doesn’t believe her, guaranteeing that they will be at odds; but it’s her fierce defence of her own beliefs which, over time, helps to wear Cai’s defences down.

Mabel’s mother is away, so she’s being looked after by older sister Ada (Josie Juliette Wert), who has recently returned to the family home after dropping out of college and is clumsily trying to get back together with her ex, Ryan (Spencer Brabham). When she finds nasty-looking bruises on Mabel’s arm, Ada is worried that she’s going to get in trouble, and annoyed by the fact that Mabel doesn’t seem to know how she got them. What she doesn’t know is that the kid has been marked for sacrifice. It’s Halloween and Mabel will be going trick or treating with her best friend, Wesley (Luke Speakman), unaware that a dangerous group of women are out there, hunting her.

Getting Speakman on board was a real coup for this small production (though there is a backstory to it, as he worked with Bishop early on in his career). He shows the same quality here as in Weapons and Godhead. There’s also impressive work from Seidensticker, who has the confidence to convince as an unusually forceful youngster but can also handle the fear and the grief that Mabel experiences at various points in the film. The two work well together in roles that present them as fully formed individuals. This is their story – they are not just there as objects of concern for older characters.

Wert can’t quite deliver on the same level, but does enough to make Ada believable, and the script does a good job of balancing its multiple protagonists. The witches don’t fare quite as well. Tess Williams’ Neve has a flimsy kind of girlishness about her, a shallow personality which makes the strong beliefs necessary to support her nefarious scheme seem incongruous. Her colleagues have no discernable personality at all, though they do have cool gimmicks which contribute creepiness to some scenes and add some complexity to scenes of magical combat. These are well staged with a proper sense of physicality (what happens to one character’s head will stay with you), and with the energy necessary to sustain a story of this sort.

Overall the film is finished to a very high standard, which is impressive given that its final edit was completed just days before its festival première. The danger is that people will see this and take it for a big studio production, not realising how hard-earned its quality is. Its production team deserve serious credit. If this is what they can pull off when working on a shoestring, what might they be capable of with some serious investment?

Reviewed on: 23 Sep 2026