Lord of Misrule

MovieScore Media presents the Original score from the 2023 horror feature film Lord of Misrule (Brett Detar) directed by William Brent Bell, composed by Brett Detar, starring Ralph Ineson, Tuppence Middleton and Alexa Goodall, produced by Riverstone Pictures, The Machine Room, Bigscope Films and REP Preoductions 12, released by Magnet Releasing (USA).

MovieScore Media presents the Original score from the 2023 horror feature film Lord of Misrule (Brett Detar) directed by William Brent Bell, composed by Brett Detar, starring Ralph Ineson, Tuppence Middleton and Alexa Goodall, produced by Riverstone Pictures, The Machine Room, Bigscope Films and REP Preoductions 12, released by Magnet Releasing (USA).

The Story:
A desperate search for the young daughter of the town’s new minister.

The Score:
« Lord of Misrule is set in an old-world village in England, so director William Brent Bell and I wanted a score filled with dark, evocative tones rooted in traditional English folk music and arcane hymns.
The film is based around a centuries old pagan religion complete with its own folklore and musical language that we had to create.
Brent wrote a hymn that was sung by the cast in the movie and then I weaved it throughout the score as one of the themes. Ralph Ineson’s iconic baritone begins the album singing that hymn.
I wrote a few other hymns and themes and creeped myself and my dog out overdubbing many dozens of layers of my voice for a recurring chant theme that builds massively – going from a quiet whisper all the way to an almost black metal scream. I’ve used my voice as an instrument on every movie I’ve worked on but on Lord of Misrule I used it much more and in a very different way. My voice was my starting point.
Brent and I knew there would be multiple hymns in the movie so instead of just writing a series of instrumental themes in ‘sketch’ format as our jumping off point I wrote all of my themes as dark cinematic folk ‘songs’ and recorded demos with me singing.
The idea was that any piece of music could easily go between instrumental score and song if need be.
Even though most of my song versions did not end up getting used in the final cut, we included one (track 6) on the album because to me that entire process was essential to how this score ended up so I wanted to represent that on the album.
Like the chants and singing I wanted there to be a bit of an ‘amateur’ feel to the entire score – not like a finely tuned orchestra but more rough-hewn – like the townsfolk in this village could all be playing this music on traditional instruments as they celebrated a holiday.
Horror action sequences were built around a jaw harp, solo cello (played by the incredible Alice Allen), various squeezeboxes, chanting, and what we referred to as ‘pagan percussion’.
Every percussive element feels like it was played by villagers stomping on and hitting various items. All is as was. » – Brett Detar

The Composer:
Prior to becoming a film composer, Brett Detar was a guitarist for the metal band Zao before finding his own successful post-punk/power pop ensemble The Juliana Theory.
After a decade of toruing and releasing four albums, the band’s disbanding lead to Detar’s first solo albuum, the critically acclaimed Bird in the Tangle, while also starting work as a film composer.
His music has been heard in The Devil Inside, Wer, Brahms: The Boy II, Orphan: First Kill and Separation. The last-mentioned was released by MovieScore Media in 2021.

MMS24011 Lord Of Misrule (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Music Composed by Brett Detar
Release date: April 19, 2024

“I… really like Lord of Misrule… a menacing and uneasy sounding score, for this modern-day rural horror… Effective, subtle, inventive, and filled with an atmosphere of unease, just up my street.”
(Movie Music International)

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More info at: Composer Brett Detar on Facebook

More info at: Official Web Site Magnet Releasing