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Photo: Atessa Moghimi (A24)./A24
Modern horror cinema’s most heterodox event took place on Saturday night, when two blonde Whitneys and A24 hosted dueling screenings at a multiplex within the southernmost border of Salt Lake City proper. The film was Heretic, directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, about two Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints missionaries, Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East), who knock on the door of a suburban Colorado house one inclement afternoon hoping to baptize the homeowner, Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant), into their faith.
Within a makeshift chapel behind locked doors, Mr. Reed lectures the missionaries on Radiohead’s litigious copywriting strategy; Monopoly and its unsung predecessor, The Landlord’s Game; and bird-headed deities until coercing the young women to choose their escape from his house of escalating horrors through either a door marked “DISBELIEF” or one alongside it marked “BELIEF.” (Spoiler: Neither presents an easy egress.)
Inside this packed cineplex, the screening’s snaking line was filled with only the truest disciples of horror film and/or Utah-based reality television. Some people I spoke to had been invited to the event by A24 directly, including members of the Lost & Found Club, a women- and genderqueer-led 501(c)(3) that aims to bring community to people who have left the LDS church in young adulthood. But most people waiting in the standby line for tickets had to rely on faith alone that they’d make it to that celestial kingdom of a screening room and experience the rapture of an A24 film presented by a woman named Whitney (with a complimentary free small popcorn and small fountain drink).
The event’s whole shtick played off the confrontational, dueling doors that have been the centerpiece of the film’s marketing: If an attendee was handed a DISBELIEF ticket, they attended the screening hosted by Whitney Rose, the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City cast member who was raised in the church but has since left it. If they got a BELIEF ticket, then they went to the screening hosted by Whitney Leavitt, a practicing Mormon and cast member of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.
The LDS church has expressed concern about Heretic as its November 8 release nears, which is also the date on which the film takes place. In a statement provided to the Mormon-run newspaper Deseret News, church spokesperson Doug Anderson said, “Heretic portrays the graphically violent treatment of women, including people of faith, and those who provide volunteer service to their communities. Any narrative that promotes violence against women because of their faith or undermines the contributions of volunteers runs counter to the safety and well-being of our communities.”
I hear what the church is saying about violence against women — Heretic has a scene involving an elderly woman’s arthritic fingers and a blueberry pie that is, while slightly less depraved than Call Me by Your Name’s sequence with Timmy Chalamet and a peach, far more psychically scarring than the hand scene in A24’s Talk to Me. For what it’s worth, I didn’t find Heretic anti-Mormon. If anything, the film was overwhelmingly anti–smug British guy.
Rose, who later told me she was channeling her “inner missionary, Sister Rose,” wore a gray tweed short-skirt-long-jacket combo with a sheer turtleneck; a “Sword of the Spirit” necklace from her jewelry line, Prism; and a pair of Louboutins. Leavitt, who was one week postpartum, wore a 1980s Jessica McClintock–inspired minidress from Asos. Her adorable, teeny-tiny 1-week-old son, Billy Gene, and her husband and at-home scene partner, Conner Leavitt, watched her admiringly from across the room.
Each woman had a designated theater to introduce the film, and right before, Rose invited me and my plus-one to join her for a shot of tequila to calm her nerves. (It was Casamigos, not her co-star and usual rival Lisa Barlow’s Vida brand, and I love drama more than I hate heartburn.) Before we knocked it back, Rose called out for Leavitt and anyone else interested to join us for a toast. Leavitt waved Rose off, but she did spend time with her Mormon Wives co-star and fellow saint Jennifer Affleck and her husband, Zac. The duo had showed up in the spare theater being used as a greenroom, and they were busy cooing over the new baby. Later, the internet told me that most of Leavitt’s castmates had been at a Sabrina Carpenter concert that night without her.
In a joint interview before the screening, I spoke to both Whitneys about their reactions to the film and the proliferation of content about Utah women in the last few years. BELIEF and DISBELIEF embodied with bobs, sitting right next to each other in reclining theater chairs.
So, first of all, I just want to know how your involvement with this event came to be. Online, on Reddit and elsewhere, this screening became a must-attend event shrouded in secrecy.
Whitney Leavitt: Did it really?
Yes. People didn’t even know how to get tickets and were apparently calling the movie theater, getting nowhere. How did it all come together?
Whitney Rose: I just got a call from a friend who said, “Can I have a friend reach out to your agent? Someone at A24 is a big fan of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City and Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.” It was intense because I posted about the screening and shared the tag from A24, and all of a sudden, my DMs, my text messages, and my emails were blowing up with everyone wanting tickets.
There’s something happening nationally right now where Utah is blowing up — not as a state but as a concept. And there’s something A24-ish about our fascination. Why are people looking at women in Utah with such fascination?
Leavitt: I think it’s a lot of things besides our religion that happens culturally in Utah. Like, we’ve got our soda drinks. Yeah, we’ve got our “Utah curl.” I don’t know if you’ve heard about it.
Wait, I don’t know the Utah curl.
Leavitt: The Utah curl: It’s a specific curl that Utah girlies have.
Rose: And I love all of your castmates a lot, but I despise the Utah curl. You gotta curl your hair to the end.
Leavitt: Or get a bob!
I’ll say this. I couldn’t tell any of your Mormon Wives castmates on the show apart until about four episodes in. Besides you, Whitney. Because they all had that same hair. All gorgeous women, to be sure, of course …
Leavitt: It’s a very trendy look. I think people were fascinated that we all looked a certain way, dressed a certain way, ate a certain way, and drank a certain way. But then, obviously, people were fascinated by the religion side of it too. And I also do appreciate both of our shows presenting a different perspective of the Mormon religion. Because I just feel like, worldwide, everyone thinks of Mormons in a certain way, right? But then you get to see a different side.
Rose: I echo everything Whitney says. When you hear about Mormonism, your mind instantly goes to all of the things that they practiced in the past, like polygamy and multiple wives. Mormonism in and of itself, from the outside, looks strange. But when I was living in it, I didn’t view it that way. It’s just so normal to us, especially growing up here in Utah, right? Whitney and I grew up in what’s called “the bubble” of Utah County, and it’s just that everyone is the same. We all think the same, act the same, and have the same friends. All the moms drive the same cars. I mean, Mormon Wives shows that. They all have the same hair, except for Whit.
Leavitt: The Utah curl.
Rose: Yeah, and I’m so glad that Whitney is paving the way there with her bob. It’s just fascinating when you have such a dense population of one religion and one culture. What people don’t realize is that there are so many different iterations and subcultures within that culture.
Heretic has gotten a lot of pushback from the Mormon church. What is it so afraid of?
Leavitt: Maybe they’re afraid of the filmmakers putting out false speculation or false doctrines. But when I watched, there’s nothing doctrinal about the church in it. Of course, there are Mormon missionaries, but I appreciated Hugh Grant’s character just giving a perspective of religion in general.
Rose: I think the fear is that there are a lot of things that we don’t talk about or are told not to talk about within the church, whether they be sacred or things that were once true in the past but are no longer true in modern revelation. They’re scared of what’s going to be in it and what that means for their members.
For me, this is easier to talk about because I’m not a member. I’ve removed my name from the church records. It’s just exposure. It’s fear of the unknown; it’s lack of control over one’s own narrative. It’s the same fear I have being on reality TV: We just show up and watch our edits.
It’s fascinating to see you two here together like this, talking about the same faith from such different perspectives. I consider RHSLC to be the wackiest comedy on TV. And some of the relationship plotlines on Mormon Wives are the most depressing television I’ve ever seen. It was often hard for me to watch. And now, I’m about to see a whole different take on the Mormon genre within a horror film.
Rose: The writers and directors are brilliant with their use of horror and psychological thrill. It’s a cat-and-mouse game of: What do I believe? Do I really not? Am I just doing this because I was told to? It’s fascinating. I watched it last night on my laptop, and I was like this the whole time:
[Rose mimics raising her paws up to her chest height expectantly, the laying-in-bed-watching-movies equivalent of being on the edge of her seat.]
I was going, “Oh my God, I relate to this!”
You didn’t serve a mission, correct?
Rose: No, I didn’t, but I channeled my inner missionary with my look tonight.
There’s a saints-sinners binary going on at this event, which was also a big part of Mormon Wives. Growing up Mormon in Utah County, did you feel confined to that binary of being either a saint or a sinner? Organized religion leaves very little room for dabbling in 60 percent of one thing and 40 percent of the other.
Rose: From my perspective, the black-and-white was really hard. By design, religion in Utah is the culture. I was raised here, and people would know if you weren’t wearing your garments, people saw you at Starbucks, and people would know if I was drinking a glass of wine at dinner. By design, I didn’t feel I could live in a gray area. Now, this was 17 years ago. A lot has changed. Even us just sitting here together with such polar-opposite perspectives — I think Utah has evolved. You can interpret religion with your relationship to God versus the institution of religion.
You’ve explored this on your show for years. I’m sure you’re aware of the memes. I talked to a Brigham Young University linguist about your “hilling” journey and the “fill/feel” merger present in the speech of millennial women in Utah, and I’ve never gotten such a response from people before about anything I’ve written.
Rose: That was like my top moment of a Housewife. I’m no longer LDS, but I come from a long line of Mormon pioneers. My family trekked across the entire United States to get here. I get so bad with words.
When the linguist at BYU [David Ellingson Eddington, professor emeritus of Linguistics] talked to you for that article, I was so proud. I was so validated. I feel so seen. Someone understands my dialect and the way I talk.
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