The Real Story of “The Order”

Terrorgram’s materials, which include viable bomb-making instructions, camouflage and tactical guides, and instructions on how to disable critical infrastructure like electrical substations, water treatment plants and dams, have radicalized at least one so-called “saint,” or mass shooter, and are alleged to have been connected to a series of power grid attacks in North Carolina as well as several active federal prosecutions.

“William Pierce doesn’t build bombs,” Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, told Rolling Stone a quarter of a century ago. “He builds bombers.” In many ways, the Terrorgram Collective fulfills the same role now, and its publications have become the modern-day version of the Turner Diaries. Disseminated worldwide through the moderation-free wilderness of Telegram, the group’s message of hate and violence is now circulating independently of any organized group or ideology for disaffected, unbalanced “lone wolves” to latch onto as justification for future atrocities.

While The Order remains firmly rooted in the past save for one passing reference to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing in a title card, during production there was no escaping the drumbeat of resurgent far-right militancy in the United States. Kurzel, the director, recalls watching news coverage of the January 6 insurrection and remarking on the gallows erected outside the Capitol building—a drawing of which features in the book and the exposition scene with law. “The Turner Diaries started to become more visible in a present-day setting in a way I was kind of shocked by,” he says, speaking to WIRED from his Tasmania residence. Indeed, following January 6, Amazon removed The Turner Diaries from its online inventory.

Hoult’s bravura portrayal of an ice-cool, controlled yet menacing Mathews through the Order’s campaign of armed robbery, counterfeiting, murder, and armed confrontation with the FBI is one of the film’s dual anchors. Aside from a striking physical resemblance to the Silent Brotherhood’s founder, Hoult closely studied his subject, aping Mathews’ mannerisms and movements from old documentary footage, studying texts that radicalized his subject, lifting weights, and cutting alcohol from his diet.

“Mathews was someone who thought and planned so in advance of what his ultimate goal was, I think he always kept in sight. That’s something Justin and I spoke about, that he wouldn’t lose his head on trivial things or things that would potentially harm his cause. In his mind, he’d already, in some ways, planned his destiny,” Hoult tells WIRED.