Didier Konings’ grim folk-horror, Heresy, takes one of mankind’s oldest warnings—don’t go into the woods—and turns it inside out. Sometimes the creature lurking beyond the village is less frightening than the people inside it.
Set in a remote, medieval Dutch enclave where Christianity provides strict rules that, particularly for women, they live and die by. Frieda (Anneke Sluiters) has been unable to conceive a child. And the community has made her intensely private sorrow very much a public affair.
Frieda is brutally attacked by a man at the village outskirts; her escape takes her deep into the forbidden forest. Frieda enters a sacred place her people associate with evil and the mysterious “Witte Wieven,” who, in Dutch mythology, are spirits of “wise women.”
Frieda returns to the village, but as suspicions grow and the whispers turn into accusations, Frieda begins questioning whether the darkness beyond the village is really something to fear—or whether the stories she’s been taught are protecting something far more dangerous.
This is familiar territory for us folk horror fans. We’ve seen the isolated religious community, the persecuted woman, the forbidden wilderness, and the forgotten remnants of pagan beliefs unearth themselves. Heresy doesn’t reinvent those ingredients. What distinguishes it is the seriousness with which Konings treats his protagonist.
Anneke Sluiters plays Frieda with strength and nuance, in part because she doesn’t turn her into an obvious modern heroine transported backward through time. Frieda wears her community’s beliefs with conviction. She fears judgment because judgment means death.
As someone who loves folkloric horror, I was drawn to the film’s subtle and artistic use of the Witte Wieven. Konings doesn’t stop the movie dead in its tracks to give us a mythology lesson or mind-numbing exposition. That restraint is important. Folklore should retain its mystery. The forest feels ancient precisely because the audience is given space to absorb.
Frieda screams in the darkness, eyes glowing pale blue, in Heresy.
“Frieda is brutally attacked by a man at the village outskirts; her escape takes her deep into the forbidden forest.”
The Witte Wieven remain strange. Their ambiguity gives them power. And that ambiguity matters because Heresy isn’t simply interested in asking whether the old folklore is true.
A pagan ritual can become a demonic one once Christianity becomes the storyteller. A woman possessing knowledge can become an unruly witch. A forbidden place can become cursed. Suddenly, “don’t go into the woods” carries another meaning: “don’t question.”
I was also deeply captivated by the masterful practical gore effects and exquisite VFX. The brutality depicted felt visceral, juxtaposed with otherworldly supernatural moments that flowed effortlessly.
The movie isn’t without limitations. Its short runtime gives it tremendous momentum but occasionally robs its mythology of breathing room. I wanted to linger longer in this world. The tormented bodies in the woods, and the Witte Wieven could have all benefited from a little more connective tissue, especially as the story moves into more overtly supernatural territory.
What exactly is Frieda’s heresy? That’s the wonderfully sinister trick the film pulls on us: by the end, the title begins to sound less like an accusation, and more like a lingering question. Maybe the horror was never that something ancient was waiting in the woods. Maybe the horror is who you trust.
Folklore freaks, occult obsessives, and slow-burn horror fans—Heresy is our kind of nightmare.
"…Folklore freaks, occult obsessives, and slow-burn horror fans—Heresy is our kind of nightmare."
