Becoming Creature

Review of Mother of Flies

Toby Poser in Mother of Flies

I write again, in the manner of an earthdiver swimming in the soil to understand the roots and tendrils of trees. I anchor myself to these circular life processes.

-Jim Harrison

In times of trouble, of turmoil, I’m drawn to the river, the mountains, the trees. Nature gives me solace, grounds my body and soul. I keep the door cracked, even in the winter, if it’s not too frigid, so I can hear the birds chattering, the sounds of the wind, the howls of neighborhood dogs. I don’t like being sealed up inside, separated from the outside world. Growing up near the James River, in Richmond, VA, I spent my childhood rock-jumping, swimming and exploring the forest, palms stained orange by the rusty nails of the abandoned train tracks. If I wasn’t running around outside, I was reading. Edgar Allen Poe and Michael Crichton were favorites.

In the last decade, as I’ve continued on my Oregon-trail like journey across the West, up from the Western slope of Colorado to mythical Montana, become a mother and sunk tendrils into the soil of a new home, I have also returned to my twin writing obsessions: nature and horror. In life, as well, these two things preoccupy my mind. If I’m not watching scary movies, or writing or reading scary stories, I’m ruminating on the real-life horrors- the mental and spiritual carnage of trying to survive and raise a child in modern day Amerikkka. When I’m debilitated by depression or anxiety, I find a sunny spot to mediate, or take a walk in the cold, noting the small details of my ever-changing habitat. The past few weeks, my family and I have been spending as much time with the Yellowstone River as possible. Before school, my son and I explored the rim of ice along the riverbank, watched the currents chatter over the rocks, hunks of ice from upstream floating by. We hit at the ice with sticks to hear the thin layers crack delicately, like wine glasses shattering. Mountains in the distance, carved by glaciers, evidence of upheaval and permanence all at once.

Yelloswtone River- late January

Naturally, I’m obsessed with horror films that immerse the viewer in the sensory experience of the wilderness. Created by the indie filmmakers the Adams family (John Adams, Zelda Adams, and mother Toby Poser wrote, directed and starred in the film, with sister Lulu Adams also appearing) Mother of Flies, their fifth feature, does one better: in watching, you are a part of the forest, an animal hiding within the leaves of a bush or in the rafters of the witch’s house. You become creature. The forest is much more than mere scenery here.

Last summer, Mother of Flies made history by becoming the first America made film to win the prestigious Cheval Noir Award for Best Film at the Fantasia International Film Festival (in its 29^th year). As Katie Rife writes in her review of the film in Paste, “in a world where film production is increasingly consolidated into the hands of a few risk-adverse corporate entities, the Adams family embodies the spirit of true independent filmmaking.” * As accomplished musicians, their movies are saturated with the atmosphere and catharsis of doom metal.

While I loved the music, performed by the family’s own metal band, in their movie Hellbender (they also created the wonderful soundtrack for this film) I didn’t connect to the overall film as much as I was hoping to. (As several agents have told me about my novel lol.) But Mother of Flies sang to me. A deep, dark forest fairy tale about the painful price of healing, it left me with a surprising sense of hope. One of the toughest things for a horror film to pull off.

Filmed in the Catskill Mountains, Mother of Flies embraces the duality of life and death, the camera lingering equally on the beauty of nature and the horror of human suffering. Reclusive healer/witch Solveig (Toby Posner) is messily intimate with death. In the film’s opening scene, through a web of branches, we see her writhing naked in a pit of bones and gore, covered in blood, caressing the blackened corpse of an infant. Life is rhythm, the heart a drum her voiceover intones. In order to relight the spark of life, one must lie with death for three days until the dead drum thumps.

Toby Poser and daughter Zelda Adams

College student Mickey (Zelda Adams) is suffering from terminal cancer, and Solveig is her last hope. Chemotherapy and modern science have failed her. When Mickey arrives with her loving widower father (John Adams) at Solveig’s creepy yet magical abode deep in the forest, he is supportive but skeptical of what he calls “witch camp.” It’s clear that Mickey didn’t find Solveig on Instagram. The house has no kitchen, bathroom or running water, and is made of tree trunks loosely bound, small gaps between them. The guests sleep on beds of moss. The kind of fairy tale setup that’s difficult to find on Air BNB.

Throughout the film, Solveig is portrayed in idyllic pastoral settings as often as she is surrounded by carnage. She has promised to cure Mickey in three days. Facing death, Mickey is willing to try anything, including Solveig’s strange rituals. In Mother of Flies the world of the forest, the texture of moss and bark, as well as pain and blood and vomit are all vividly rendered. I lingered, inspired to write or draw, on many gorgeous and gory shots throughout this film. Blood and green, beauty and violence.

Toby Poser

Poser embodies the role of Solveig thoroughly, imbuing the archetype of the forest witch with both gravitas and sly humor. She is a phenomenal actress, and although the other members of the family can’t quite rise to her level here (the banter between the real-life father and daughter is sometimes stilted) they shine in the moments of physical and emotional intensity that define the film. As Rife writes in her review, “Mother Of Flies is a new high for this tight-knit unit, drawing power from their own story as a family: Both Poser and John Adams are cancer survivors, and they have transformed that painful experience into an awesome work of art.”

I was blown away by the sensual and emotional experience of Mother of Flies, and I can’t wait to check out the Adams Family’s other movies. With their wonderful and haunting films, they prove that the family that screams together stays together.

4/5 Skulls

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*https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/adams-family/mother-of-flies-review