Horror films are a tough genre to nail. I would suggest that although it is one of my favorite types of films, i find myself disappointed a lot more frequently than the other way around. Lord of Misrule looked like it had some promise but it didn't take very long for me to realize that this film could have easily been a short at least half the length that it was. Whenever any film is filling up space in order to reach the apparently obligatory 90 minute mark, I get irritated and that is exactly how I feel about this film.
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So one thing I kind of noticed really early on was the similarity that this film had with Wicker Man and no, not the "BEES!" one with Nicolas Cage. A person, in this case a woman minister, moves to a new town that has some rather archaic rituals that have been a part of their tradition for many generations. While she finds the rituals unusual, Rebecca (the minister) soon discovers that there is something sinister going on and it isn't just a rather meaningless and silly holiday like Halloween is, although it appears that way at first.
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To me, the first indication that this wasn't an innocent trick-or-treating sort of event would have been the rather terrifying costumes that aren't nearly as whimsical as they were indicated that they would be. Between the dancing and merriment it is of course, the minister's child who ends up disappearing.
This falls right in line with Wicker Man in that the newly added person to the community slowly starts to realize that the people who inhabit this land are involved in macabre pagan rituals that they believe will bring them good fortune. The introduction of a demon of sorts - whose presentation is indeed frightening but not surprising - was well done but also extremely predictable and got boring pretty quick. People can only get possessed and doors magically slam shut so many times before it stops being scary.
It was around this time that I fell asleep on my first attempt at watching it and thankfully I kind of remembered where I dozed off so I could resume it another day.
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Things get a bit darker as things move on and Rebecca, despite her strongly held Christian beliefs, is forced to participate in rituals that go against her entire belief system if she wants to have a chance of getting her daughter back.
Insert 50 minutes of repetitive dialogue and 20 or so magically slamming doors and that is basically the entire movie. I'm not going to spoil the ending for you but honestly, I don't think you should bother with this one.
Should I watch it?
I think that from a cinematography point of view that this film is actually quite well-made despite a less-than-massive budget. There are a couple of good actors in this but for the most part the dialogue is so repetitive that I had a "get on with it already" feeling after the first 30 minutes - hence the falling asleep even though it was not very late.
It's pretty easy to tell that this is the "people who live in rural areas are weird!" story that has been told hundreds of times before and very little happens in it that is even remotely surprising. Having said that, I think there might be an audience out there that would appreciate enough of this movie to enjoy it. If you like horror, maybe put it on the back burner and save it for later. However, I kind of agree with the general consensus of online reviews that rate this thing at around 5.5/10 .
Currently the only legal way to watch this film is to rent it on AppleTV+. I would imagine this will quickly change as they realize not many people are willing to pay for this