Heretic's Butterfly & What It Means Explained

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Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Heretic (2024)

The butterfly that appears in Heretic's ending may seem like a relatively minor detail, but this animal’s appearance is central to the movie's symbolic story. A24’s religious horror Heretic is a densely packed movie, which is quite a feat considering the story has only three named characters. For the majority of its runtime, the unbearably tense Heretic follows Mormon missionaries Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton, played by Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, as they attempt to convert Hugh Grant’s seemingly sweet Mr. Reed. Once the duo try to leave Reed’s home, things take a dark, unexpected turn.

Sophie Thatcher in Heretic and Hugh Grant

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Trapped inside Reed’s labyrinthine home, the young women are subjected to various psychological tests that interrogate their shared faith. Reed uses clever trickery to seemingly poison a woman and bring her back to life, but this fails to convince Sister Barnes. Heretic’s small cast of characters grows even smaller when a frustrated Reed abruptly slits Barnes’ throat, leaving only himself and Paxton alive in the finale. Paxton uncovers Reed’s deceptions and realizes his supernatural powers were mere trickery, summoning the courage to stab him. A dying Reed attempts to kill Paxton, but Barnes uses her last strength to kill him.

Sister Paxton Said She Wanted To Return As A Butterfly

Sisters Barnes and Paxton walk in the rain in Heretic

In the final moments of Heretic, Paxton prays on the floor of a dank basement as Reed reaches out to slit her throat. Her prayers are seemingly answered when Barnes returns to life for long enough to kill Reed and save her. Paxton runs from the basement and escapes the house, climbing through a ground-floor window into the snowy garden outside. Once outside, a butterfly lands on Sister Paxton’s hand for a brief moment before seemingly disappearing. This enigmatic image is a callback to Paxton’s comment earlier, as well as a symbolic encapsulation of the movie’s broader story.

Paxton says she hopes to return as an insect so she can alight on the hands of her loved ones.

Long before Reed imprisons the women and begins testing their faith, Paxton mentions during a conversation that she would like to be reincarnated as a butterfly after she dies. Although reincarnation isn’t an established part of the Church of Latter-day Saints, Paxton says she hopes to return as an insect so she can alight on the hands of her loved ones. This was, they would know that she was still a presence in their lives after her death. As such, it makes sense that a butterfly does exactly this to Paxton the moment that Sister Barnes presumably dies off-screen.

Heretic’s Ending Leaves The Butterfly’s Existence Ambiguous

A Hard Cut Makes Heretic’s Sweet Moment Tough To Decipher

The butterfly seemingly vanishes a second after appearing on Sister Paxton’s hand, so it may just be an exhausted, traumatized Paxton’s delusion. After suffering through seeing her friend die and almost dying herself, Paxton might have imagined the comforting image of a butterfly to represent her dead friend. The hard cut from Paxton’s butterfly sighting to her hand shaking in the garden implies a harsh discord between her experience of the situation and what is actually happening in Heretic's story. Ironically, the entire ordeal was predicated on Reed trying to trick the women into believing in something that wasn't necessarily real.

Although Paxton and Barnes were both women of faith, they still refused to believe that Reed's so-called “Prophet” really returned from the dead. Barnes hazarded a guess by saying that the woman simply had a near-death experience, but this was not quite correct. In reality, the ailing woman had died after willingly poisoning herself with the pie. However, she was replaced by another, almost identical woman who played her revived self. Paxton worked this out in Heretic’s ending, resulting in her final showdown with Reed. This fight seemingly ended with Paxton escaping, although the butterfly could subtly imply otherwise.

Mr. Reed’s Butterfly Dream Monologue Is Linked To Heretic’s Ending

Heretic’s Ending May Be A Dying Dream

Sophie Thatcher's Sister Barnes and Chloe East's Sister Paxton stand in the rain in Heretic 2024 trailer

After killing Barnes, Reed references Chuang Tzu’s "Butterfly Dream." This Taoist story tells the tale of a man who dreamed he was a butterfly and wondered, upon waking up, whether he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was a man. This allusion heavily implies that Sister Paxton may have died in the cellar, and she spends the end of Heretic experiencing a butterfly dream wherein she escaped. Heretic’s twisty horror story appears to depict Barnes rising from the dead to kill Reed, thus stopping him from killing Paxton. However, this seems unlikely given her death scene.

According to this theory, Reed may have killed Paxton and she only imagined her escape.

Barnes bled out almost immediately after Reed cut her throat, seemingly dying on the floor within minutes and not reacting while Reed dug a contraceptive device out of her arm. About fifteen minutes later, she returned to consciousness long enough to beat Reed to death with a wooden board before dying again. This was seemingly the sort of miraculous resurrection that Reed claimed he could perform earlier, and it conveniently arrived as Paxton sat on the floor bleeding from a stomach wound as Reed attempted to slit her throat. Thus, according to this theory, Reed may have killed Paxton and she only imagined her escape.

Heretic’s Butterfly Highlights The A24 Horror Movie’s Real Message

Sister Paxton’s Personal Experience Is Impossible To Refute

Hugh Grant framed between two girls, who stand with their backs to the camera, in Heretic

Paxton’s Heretic ending might be a delusional dying dream, akin to the famous twist from author Ambrose Bierce’s seminal short story “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge.” However, it is vital to note that A24’s horror movie doesn’t support this interpretation over another reading of the finale. There is literally no way of knowing whether the butterfly in Heretic’s final scene is real, which is illustrative of the movie’s entire message. Despite what both the missionaries and Reed claim at different stages, faith and belief are always subjective and, while subject to manipulation, can ultimately only be experienced individually.

There is no way of knowing how much of Heretic's ending happened, just like there was no way for Reed, Paxton, or Barnes to prove themselves definitely correct.

Reed tries to engineer circumstances to make the missionaries see him as a god but, despite their faith, this doesn’t work. Meanwhile, Paxton genuinely believes in Heretic’s ending that she defeated Reed, Barnes returned from the dead to finish him off and save her life, and her dead friend’s soul was then transferred into a butterfly to reassure Paxton that she was alright. There is no way of knowing how much of this happened, just like there was no way for Reed, Paxton, or Barnes to prove themselves definitely correct in an argument about the unknowable philosophical truths at the core of Heretic.

Heretic is currently playing in theaters.