Horror As Folk: All Is As Was – The Familiar and New Folk Horror of Lord of Misrule (2023)

Since I started this column, I have spilled a lot of (proverbial) ink discussing whether or not various movies are folk horror, and what we even mean by that designation. This is not going to be one of those. Lord of Misrule is emphatically – maybe even self-consciously – folk horror. More so than perhaps any other movie we have discussed in this column, this is a film that clearly set out to be classified as folk horror, and could not exist without the precedent and popularity of the subgenre as it is understood today.

Elements of the folklore presented in Lord of Misrule are real enough. The title figure, typically chosen from among the peasantry at Christmastime, to preside over the Feast of Fools, is an actual part of traditional celebrations in England, France, and Scotland, for example. At the same time, the nature spirit Gallowgog and the history associated therewith is, as far as I can tell, made up whole cloth by screenwriter Tom de Ville, whose previous credits include The Quiet Ones and the 2015 folk horror joint The Hallow.

Here’s the thing, though: They work. The combo of actual “old ways” material with credible-seeming made-up folklore creates a work that manages to avoid stepping on the toes of any specific folk belief while still conjuring up a believable framework that is easy to follow without it needing to be spoon fed to the audience every step of the way, which is not to say that there won’t be more than adequate exposition before all is said and done.

Over on Letterboxd, Lord of Misrule has a shocking number of extremely low scores, which is wild because if this exact same movie had been released by A24, I would never be able to get anyone to shut up about it. Among those lackluster reviews, though, one word repeats time and again: “familiar.” Lord of Misrule is accused of repeating things that we’ve already seen before in other movies, which I think may do more to suggest that the fad for folk horror has begun to run its course than actually provide an indictment of this film in particular.

After all, if folk horror is, indeed, about the “old ways,” how can it ever be anything but familiar? Even when folk horror is showing us something that we’ve never seen before, it should probably feel familiar, like something that we have forgotten, rather than never encountered. Something buried in our past, in our psyches, in the earth.

That same familiarity helps to make Lord of Misrule feel approachable in a way that many recent folk horror films have not. You can perhaps chalk that up to the influence of director William Brent Bell, whose prior filmography includes such mainstream horror hits as The Boy, Orphan: First Kill, and the 2006 video game nonsense Stay Alive – perhaps not the most encouraging CV for a folk horror flick. Yet, Lord of Misrule is undoubtedly Bell’s best-looking and most atmospheric film to date, and it repurposes many of the same techniques used by more celebrated entries in the canon to craft a slowly-closing trap that welcomes you in before snapping its barbs shut around you. “This is how we love,” indeed.

It seems like most of the best films that I saw this year did not receive a wide theatrical release, or a major push onto a popular streaming platform. Just as Dark Harvest was unceremoniously dumped onto VOD back in October and Megalomaniac and The Primevals remain unseen by most people, Lord of Misrule did not get a theatrical bow anywhere near me and seems to have shown up online without much fanfare. Which is unfortunate, because this movie had a real opportunity to be a hit.

All of which is not to say that Lord of Misrule is a perfect film. The final product is probably overlong and perhaps a little unfocused and bogs down at times in the midsection. The book that the villagers have all read since they were children is clearly illustrated in a modern style – a very common failing in films that are trying to create new “old” books. The final punch could have been delivered with a bit more heft.

At the same time, Lord of Misrule works more often than it doesn’t, and if it had been released at a different time, in a different way, the buzz surrounding it would have been deafening. As it is, it seems to have flown under the radar.

That’s probably a bad thing for Bell and company, but it might be a good thing for the film’s legacy. Lord of Misrule is a solid and strong film, but it may not have the stamina to become a classic. Too much buzz might have soured it. Instead, perhaps people will come to it on their own over the coming years, and it will build a suitable cult following, which is a place where it is better suited to thrive.

Hit or not, though, success or not, one thing that Lord of Misrule undeniably is is folk horror.