A young woman and her father seek a cure for her illness via a strange and dangerous witch in The Adams Family’s affecting folk horror Mother of Flies, now streaming on Shudder.
It’s a good day for horror fans when the Adams family (one D, no *snap snap*) gifts us a new film. Especially for fans of Make Yer Own Damned Movie indie horror films that use the genre in interesting, personal, and particular ways. After a series of non-horror shorts and features, along with working on local commercials, John Adams, his wife Toby Poser, and their daughter Zelda and Lulu found themselves to be fantastic horror filmmakers with The Deeper You Dig in 2019. Between then and now, they’ve made Hellbender, Where the Devil Roams, and Hell Hole. Now on Shudder, the family filmmaking collective, as this, like most of their films, is trio-directed by John, Toby, and Zelda, The Mother of Flies returns with another emotional, personal, and utterly engaging slide of do-it-yourself small film weirdness. Mother of Flies won Best Picture at Fantastic Fest in 2025, and it’s a worthy win.
After an enigmatic opening of a woman drenching herself in a blood bath (don’t get excited, while there is blood later, it’s controlled and nasty body horror), the film meets Mickey, a college student embarking on a trip with her father, Jake. Where they’re going, only she seems to know, and the why is kept away for a bit, as the film works this way. Full thoughts and explanations, how people feel, and why they act the way they do are often pushed back by the people working through until crashing in heartbreaking and powerful dialogues. They are heading to the Catskills to see a witch, Solveig, at her half-nature Baba Yaga-like home (apparently, the family’s real-life house). Every other outlet to cure what ails Mickey has failed, so why not?
While their other films use aspects of folk horror, Mother of Flies fully enters the subgenre. Solveig’s home is overtaken by her world, moss beds, open landscapes, dinners of twigs and mushrooms. Her cures are straight from the land. It’s a film in touch with nature, the terrors of life and death found within. Finding life in death and death in life, skirting, crossing, and returning the line. As memento mori as Dr. Kelvan in Bone Temple. There’s a low-key chill of unease in the world of death, highlighted by crisp, dark cinematography (by John & Zelda). It’s a textured, detailed film, brought to life by the camera and those on either side of it (even if they are the same people). It’s a beautiful meditation, purposely and slowly building its danger and discord. It’s deeply personal, filled with a sort of catharsis.
There’s something special about Adam’s family films. There’s a certain spark to their work not often found in other films. Their connection, their history, their sympatico. They work together with a knowing ease that allows greatness to come through. I have to appreciate their incredible multi-hyphates. The trio of John & Zelda Adams and Toby Poser write, direct, edit, star, and provide the music as their band H6llB6N6R (and more). It’s a family affair where every member is giving their all, and it shows. To note, other Adams sister Lulu is in a single scene, so she’s around and makes the most of it.
With all the other work, I’m glad they all perform the front-of-camera duties as well as they do behind the camera. Toby Poser (also producing) is never better as Solveig. She’s unknowable: is she evil or good, is she telling the truth or working for herself? Could all of that be true? She’s not upfront with answers, distant and strange. Her vernacular is odd; she doesn’t seem to eat and is confused about facilities. Poser’s witch is otherworldly, yet undoubtedly real. (On her testament as an actress, she often plays distant and tough characters with an edge, but I’ve met her at Crypticon several times, and she and her family are so incredibly kind and sweet. They’re the real deal.) Zelda is wonderful as a young woman facing an early mortality and trying to work with it; she has several powerful and wrenching moments toward the end. John Adams is similarly great as a dad who has already lost his wife, almost lost his daughter once, and is on the verge of losing her for good. It’s a tough go, working through that emotion, getting what life he can with Mickey, trying to honor her wishes of attending a situation he has no faith in, and being himself. It goes without saying that the trio has astounding chemistry. As they do behind the camera, they move in their circles and cycles in front of, knowing what works best for the others, and as a group to craft something special.
Mother of Flies is another unique film from a fantastic collective, being their best selves with a film on a tiny budget but tons of heart and love. John Adams, Toby Poser & Zelda Adams’s Mother of Flies is a emotional-connected, beautiful shot folk horror. Now on Shudder.