‘Mother of Flies’ is Frightening, Fragile and Full of Life [Review]

The Adams Family has returned triumphant with Mother of Flies, once again jarring the tar-like, sticky substance that this real-life blood clan is so uniquely capable of conjuring. They’ve returned from the woods, having crafted yet another putrid thing of beauty and massaged it into something fresh, wrong, evil, and yet somehow also utterly pure. After a detour into slightly more mainstream territory with last year’s Hell Hole, Toby Poser, Zelda Adams, and John Adams are back with what may be their greatest work to date.

This is a film about death, power, disease, growth, nature, and decay. It’s also a shadowplay, a handwritten note, and a green smoothie brewed in the depths of hell. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before.

Mother of Flies unravels like an Adderall-fueled fever dream—a dopemaine blasted blend of bad vibes and impeccable taste. It begins with Mickey (Zelda Adams), a young college student, and her father, Jake (John Adams), as they venture deep into the remote countryside to meet an alternative healer… of sorts. Mickey has recently learned that her cancer has returned, and the prognosis is unimaginable: she has six months to live.

With nothing to lose, Mickey seeks out the overgrown woodland domain of Sloveg (Toby Poser), a figure who never pretends to be anything but what she is—an actual goddamn witch. While Jake is skeptical, he respects Mickey’s impulse to receive this unorthodox treatment, which will require them to stay at Sloveg’s moss-covered, bone-haunted treehouse for several days.

Written, directed, and even scored by John Adams, Zelda Adams, and Toby Poser, this horror-fantasy is a cerebral feast for patient viewers willing to wade into the murky pond water of experimentalism and DIY genre madness. This is not a $10 million studio horror film. If you can accept that, Mother of Flies reveals a thousand small details that are not just rewarding but utterly otherworldly. Like Hellbender and Where the Devil Roams, the film feels like being granted illicit access to a place you know you shouldn’t enter—but you can’t help but push deeper.

The settings, as simple as they may be, are pupil-dilatingly beautiful. At the film’s Fantasia Fest world premiere, the audience let out an audible gasp when Sloveg’s towering tree-home was revealed. Even the way the Adams Family frames something as casual as a bowl of greens can feel shocking, excruciating, and impossible. The movie looks and feels both alive and dead all at once, as if the filmmakers behind the camera might really be working above a cauldron instead of in front of an iMac.

And they do just as much heavy lifting when in front of the camera. Zelda Adams delivers a heartbreaking, grounded performance as Mickey, a young woman cursed with the knowledge that death waits just beyond her bedroom door. She infuses Mickey with a burning brightness and tragic bravery. She is not afraid of death, but she will fight like hell to hold onto what’s hers. We, the audience, are more afraid than she is. It’s a powerful spell for such a young actor to pull off.

Toby Poser, as Sloveg, is a revelation. This really may be my favorite performance of the year. Poser’s witch is elegant, unfussy, and terrifying without relying on cliché. She inhabits the character with an authenticity that feels almost too real, as if the film has unearthed something rather than invented it. There are moments where Sloveg’s unsettling humor—like a dark god studying ants—elicits nervous laughter from viewers. Every look, step, and breath she takes is intentional and magnetic. I found myself reeling over the performance in the same way I might fawn over a problematic pop star or one of Bravo’s top-shelf Real Housewives. She evoked my inherent queer joy in worshipping a woman who lives fully, no matter how dark the consequences may be. Poser taps into all of that and more with her performance of Sloveg.

Performances aside, the script could have likely benefitted from another pass or two, as some of the dialogue feels a bit stiff or undercooked at times. These moments would occasionally remind me I was watching a film rather than some sinister footage I might have discovered on a cellphone I found in the woods. But by the end of the first act, any sense of clumsiness is gone, and the film’s spell takes over.

Visually, Mother of Flies carries the same DNA as the Adams’ earlier work. It’s akin to some lost, alternative-radio 90s music video that never got prime-time play, instead relegated to the witching hours, waiting for the sorry souls of insomniacs and night-shifters to stumble upon it in some shared fever dream. It especially reminds me of Rasputina, the gothic cello-rock trio fronted by the dark genius Melora Creager. Like Rasputina, The Adams Family produces a certain spider-in-the-teacup style of storytelling that I can’t get enough of. 

Speaking of music, the film’s score, performed by the family’s own band, is as vital as its visuals. If you haven’t checked out H3LLB3ND3R, go listen immediately. What can’t this family do? Industrious, murderous, glorious, and fragile—their music is evil and beautiful, alive and rotting, and perfectly in tune with the film’s spirit.

Mother of Flies might not be the film you recommend to your parents or your mainstream horror friends, but the Adams Family has once again outdone themselves. The film recently won the top prize at the Fantasia Film Festival—the first American film to do so—and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

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