2023 • English
A village harvest festival, a missing child and the sort of local tradition that makes the Church of England look wildly underprepared. In this Folk 'n' Hell episode, Andy Davidson, Dave Houghton and David Hall turn their attention to Lord of Misrule (2023), a very rural English folk horror about bells, bonfires, masks, Morris-adjacent menace and a community that has clearly been rehearsing something much worse than a raffle.
The film, written by Tom DeVille and directed by William Brent Bell, follows a vicar, played by Tuppence Middleton, who has recently moved to a small village with her husband and daughter. During the harvest festival, her daughter Grace is chosen as the Harvest Angel, which sounds charming right up until she disappears. From there, the film sends its vicar into woods, rituals, local histories and the distinctly unhelpful company of villagers who know far more than they are saying. “It was flagged very early on... this was a folk horror movie. Oh my God, it’s leaking out of its pores.” FolknHell host, Dave Houghton
The hosts have no difficulty spotting the folk horror furniture. In fact, that becomes one of the main problems. As Dave points out, the film is "leaking out of its pores" from the opening moments, with horned skulls, pagan objects, fields, churches and ominous festival paraphernalia all placed so firmly in view that the mystery barely gets its boots muddy. Andy and David are with him on the sense that Lord of Misrule starts in the deep end, rather than letting the weirdness seep in.
That does not mean they dismiss it. Ralph Ineson gets praise for giving Jocelyn, the village's Lord of Misrule, real weight, even when the script does not quite give him enough to carry. There is also a genuinely strong idea buried in the film: an old village bargain, a revived ritual, a child taken not simply by a person, but by something older and stranger. The trouble is that the atmosphere arrives fully labelled, the drama feels underwritten, and several promising bits of menace drift past like figures standing in a field, waiting for someone to ask the obvious question.
So is Lord of Misrule folk horror? Absolutely. Is it good folk horror? That is where the bonfire starts to smoke.
Lord of Misrule (2023) centres on a Church of England vicar who has moved with her family to an isolated rural village. During the annual harvest festival, her daughter Grace is chosen as the Harvest Angel, a ceremonial role wrapped in masks, firelight, old customs and rather too much local enthusiasm.
When Grace vanishes during the celebrations, the vicar tries to rally the village and the police in a desperate search. But the community's rituals are not just quaint seasonal theatre. The Lord of Misrule, the figure of Gallowgog, an old village story and a history of sacrifice all begin to point towards something hidden beneath the festival.
The setup is strong: a child gone missing, a village closing ranks, and a vicar caught between Christian duty and older beliefs with much sharper teeth.
The hosts reach the folk horror verdict with very little resistance. Lord of Misrule has the lot: an isolated rural community, a harvest festival, ritual costumes, pagan imagery, sacrifice, old gods versus new religion, children in masks, a church built over deeper histories and a village that treats outsiders with smiling contempt. As David says, "It was a folk horror playbook."
The question is less whether it qualifies and more whether it does anything surprising with the ingredients. Dave argues that the film signals its intentions far too early. Rather than letting the viewer discover the village's beliefs alongside the vicar, it opens with so many folk horror signposts that the later revelations feel expected rather than alarming. The comparison with The Wicker Man naturally comes up, not because the hosts think Lord of Misrule is simply a copy, but because it shows how much power can come from delayed discovery.
Andy is a little more sympathetic to the story beneath the execution. He sees a stronger idea here than some reviews give it credit for, especially in the suggestion that the child is not merely kidnapped by villagers, but claimed by a spirit or bargain. Even so, the group agrees that the film wants to be folk horror so badly that it sometimes forgets to be dramatic.
- Too Much Too Soon The film lays out its folk horror credentials immediately: fields, churches, bells, pagan objects and ominous festival imagery. For the hosts, this removes the pleasure of discovery and leaves the viewer waiting for revelations they already know are coming.
- The Outsider in the Village The vicar and her family are marked as outsiders from the start, even in the apparently friendly "Mrs Vicar" and "Mr Vicar" greetings. The village is polite, practised and already united around something the newcomers do not understand.
- Old Gods, New Church Lord of Misrule sets Christian authority against older rural belief, with the vicar caught between parish duty and a ritual system that predates her. The church setting gives the conflict a useful shape, even if the film does not always push it hard enough.
- Ritual as Performance The hosts are struck by how rehearsed the village festival feels. The costumes, silence, chanting and authority of the Lord of Misrule suggest a community not playing at tradition, but maintaining a serious and frightening collective habit.
- Underwritten Panic A missing child should create escalating terror, but the hosts feel the vicar and her husband rarely convey the urgency or collapse the situation demands. The film has horrible events, but often lacks the emotional force to make them land.
- A Better Story Than Its Execution Beneath the signposting, the hosts find a potentially strong idea about sacrifice, revived ritual and a spirit demanding its due. The problem is not the premise, but the way the film keeps explaining or displaying things instead of letting dread build.
Lord of Misrule is plainly folk horror, and the hosts do not treat it as a lost cause. It is well shot, it has a solid rural English setup, and there are moments where the ritual machinery of the village feels properly nasty. Ralph Ineson brings heft to Jocelyn, and the idea of Gallowgog as something more than a costumed festival figure gives the film a sharper edge.
But the verdict is cautious. Dave gives it five for effort, calling it a decent attempt but not one he would watch again. Andy, who liked it more on first viewing, settles on a six after finding that it has diminishing returns. David also lands on five, seeing enough in it to recommend watching once, but not enough to raise it above the merely serviceable.
The final Folk 'n' Hell score is 16 out of 30: watchable, very folk horror, but certainly not a great one.
How each host rated this film