A24’s terrifying Heretic kicks off when two young women serving as missionaries knock on the door of the mysterious Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant) and soon find themselves trapped inside a physical and psychological house of horrors. Writer/director team Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, who penned A Quiet Place, cleverly pull the two women (Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East) and the audience into what seems to be a seemingly straightforward chat about religious doctrine with a stranger who has the disarming charm Grant has brought to so many roles. Only this encounter soon devolves into a life-and-death game of cat and mouse.

Cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung endeavored on set to take viewers on a visual journey that complemented these frightening events and subsequently brought the task of final color grading to Company 3 Senior Colorist Stephen Nakamura. “The movie’s really smart,” says Nakamura, who was drawn in immediately on his first viewing. “It’s riveting, but you never know quite what’s going to happen next. So much of the story comes out through the thought-provoking dialogue and the performances. There isn’t a heavy ‘look’ that’s meant to be front and center, but a lot went into shaping the visuals in ways that subtly complement the twists and turns of the story.”

“Chung-Hoon’s cinematography creates such a suffocating mood,” the writer/director team shared. “And it’s a mood of degrees, that slowly amplify over the course of the film. It was important to Chung-Hoon and Stephen that it start off a little flat. Benign almost. And that really gave us somewhere to go. So, by the time we get to the second half of the film, we’ve almost transcended genres, from awkward buddy comedy to full-on horror film.”

The DP explains that while he’s very familiar with the technical facets of his job, “I always want to be guided by the story and its tempo. We wanted the first part to look real — not at all like a horror movie. But then, as the story progresses, there are shots where the most important thing is to make what’s happening look scary, and I was less concerned about reality in those moments. We have people in strong silhouettes. In fact, sometimes, I shot it so you could barely see people’s faces.”

Of course, just presenting a black screen would be neither feasible nor would it do justice to the powerful acting. “Getting the exact right amount of detail shot-by-shot was challenging,” he recalls. Finding the perfect blend of illumination in a shot to reveal what needs to be seen without compromising the overall sense of darkness, he says, “was something best done in a color grading theater… I knew Stephen would help me bring things up and down in the grade, so it’s dark, as the basement would be, but we see what’s most important, especially Mr. Reed’s eyes.”

On set, the cinematographer had convinced the directors to place a small practical lamp in the dark basement to motivate a few precious slivers of light. “That also added some warmth to the otherwise cold blue space,” Nakamura explains, “so that introduced some variety to the color in the scenes. It provided us the opportunity to manipulate color contrast between the warm and cool light in the grade more than we would have been able to otherwise.”

“He understands story,” Chung-Hoon says of Nakamura. “I’m not a cinematographer who’s going to say, ‘make this 20% brighter,’ or ‘add this much saturation there.’ I would talk to him about the story, and he would get it very quickly. Sometimes, he’ll say he wants to just try something and show it to me and when I see it, it’s perfect. Exactly what I was thinking! He is very organized, and when I work with him, he always knows the director’s, the DP’s, and the studio’s mind so that everyone comes away happy.”

“We really appreciate Stephen’s connection to the material,” the writer/director duo also state. “He is an incredible thinker, and many of the ideas that the film confronts, he had been chewing on for years. We’re big believers that a personal connection to the work you’re doing makes a big difference, and we think Stephen’s beautiful and haunting work on Heretic is proof of that.”

Heretic is now playing in theaters everywhere.