Life of Brian is a strange movie for this flick to remind you of, but they both have the same underlying theme in the effort to refute blind reason to a doctrine that's long since been shown to be ridiculous.

The most overt manifestation of the theme is when Mr Reed (Hugh Grant) asks young Mormon missionaries Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) about the history of polygamy in their church and they have their response explaining it so down pat you can tell how completely they believe it.

We meet the two devout young women wandering around the neighbourhood following up visitors who've expressed interest in learning more about the Mormon church, and when they come to the dark, forbidding house occupied by Mr Reed, a storm is closing in and they're happy to go inside, despite slight concern about the rules that say they're not allowed inside a house with a grown man alone.

But the preternaturally chirpy and cheerful Mr Reed assures them his wife will be with them very soon as soon as she finishes the blueberry pie in the oven.

It won't be any surprise to you that no wife ever materialises, and the challenge for writer/directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (whose names I last saw behind Adam Driver dinosaur adventure 65) is to stretch the discomfort out before it descends into the terror you know is coming while giving Barnes and Paxton a plausible reason to stay instead of demanding to be let out (as you know they must).

Until that time, they sit in Mr Reed's scary house, the kind of horror movie house where a lamp casts barely any glow in a dank-walled room and the furnishings and fixtures are old and uncomfortable.

The conversation seems to start with his genuine interest in their religion, but the girls follow Mr Reed further into the house to a study down a long, dark hallway that feels like they're penetrating Dante's nine circles of hell to continue despite their misgivings.

It soon becomes apparent Mr Reed is actually a very well-versed religious scholar who knows all the holes in logic, self-referential nature and hypocrisies of all historical belief systems, including Mormonism.

Not only that, his aim seems to be to disavow the girls of their beliefs by pointing out the inconsistencies and brutalities religion – including theirs – has wrought throughout history. If he's a villain (and no matter how friendly he remains, the mood and timbre of the visit make it plain he is), his villainy seems to be to watch the worldviews of innocents crumble through brute force.

When the girls listen to their instincts and insist on being let go, he tells them the back door is their only option because the front door locks automatically – just one of the many red flags. But it goes from uncomfortable to overtly creepy when he tells them they have to choose one of two doors to exit through, on which he writes 'belief' and 'disbelief'.

Beyond both doors is an even lower circle of hell, a dark, dripping concrete basement where Mr Reed drops all pretence of being friendly and his diabolical plan for them is gradually revealed.

Like so many other films, it's a balancing act of stretching out an uncomfortable situation strategically enough so that the protagonists don't give in to their suspicions and run for the hills or the horror and violence peaks too early and leaves the story with nowhere else to go.

As Paxton and Barnes, East and Thatcher are fantastic characters who do as much to carry the building tension as the staging of the creepy location and the talismans and reveals that unfold in the script, like the blueberry-scented candle.

They're intelligent and articulate, and while Barnes is a little more streetwise and circumspect (owing to her backstory), Paxton is as gormless as they come, wanting to believe the best in everyone even when the situation is screaming warning bells at her.

Grant can do this sort of thing extremely well and has done so in almost every genre you can think of, it's just given a whole different lease on life in a horror movie where his character is hiding murderous secrets.

It's a character piece, almost like a play, though it never feels constrained (just claustrophobic, which is exactly what the story calls for and which the sets and design deliver in spades) and a reminder that the most effective tool in any genre is the interaction of well defined characters.

It loses a bit of momentum near the end, where a few things didn't make as much sense and some of the reveals started to strain credulity (just how big is the house? And was the scale model in the study really necessary to tell us Mr Reed's plotting all this intrigue so precisely?), but at the very least some of the ideas it raises will stay with you, as will an effective horror movie tone.