‘Mother of Flies’ Review: The Adams Family Delivers an Arrestingly Poetical Take on Witchery in the Woods

After making several shorts and features of a non-genre nature, the Adams family of upstate New York crafted their first horror exercise with 2019’s “The Deeper You Dig.” A creepily restrained occult tale reminiscent of the better early 1970s independent chillers, it made enough of a splash that they’ve stuck with the form ever since, forging an ongoing relationship en route with specialty streaming platform Shudder. 

Interim efforts “Hellbender,” “Where the Devil Roams” and “Hell Hole” were uneven, sometimes seeming like glorified showcases for the multitalented family’s musical side (they have a band) and related cool-Goth-kid posturing. But the new “Mother of Flies,” which won best film at Fantasia, returns to the strengths of “Deeper” while taking them further into a realm of poetic originality. With just a wisp of “plot” and a deceptive commitment to horror conventions, what by any rights ought to be the Adams’ most self-indulgent project yet instead turns out to be a small but singular triumph. It’s a densely textured, quite gorgeous dive into folkloric witchiness that avoids nearly all anticipated clichés, finally arriving at something not so much terrifying as unexpectedly poignant.

An opening montage of unidentifiable sticky matter, a naked woman writhing in gore, squirming maggots et al., suggests ample evil ahead, as Solveig (Poser) intones off-putting insights in voiceover, like “To know death, one must love it, lie with it.” Yet this grotesque start proves misleading. A classic “witch of the woods,” recalling Piper Laurie’s Margaret White in “Carrie” with her unkempt long hair and shapeless robe, Solveig is the last resort for collegiate music student Mickey (Zelda Adams). The latter has now exhausted all medical-scientific solutions, facing a recurrence of cancer expected to be terminal. Grasping at any hope, she’s asked devoted widower father Jake (John Adams) to drive her to this mystery woman’s abode in the Catskills, where a supernatural healing of some sort may or may not take place. Dad is skeptical if tolerant … to a point.

Their destination turns out to be an eccentric house far down an obscure country lane (apparently the Adamses’ own real-life home). If it looks like something out of a Grimm Brothers fable from the outside, the inside is even stranger — every room looks like an art installation that might’ve been designed by Andy Goldsworthy. Not only are modern conveniences absent, essentials such as a toilet or kitchen appear to likewise be MIA. While she supplies these guests with some questionable edibles, Solveig herself claims to subsist on air alone, and is otherworldly enough that we believe it.

She tells father and daughter the “cure” will take three days, and “will be hard.” Indeed, at times Mickey only seems to get sicker, while dad too suffers some hallucinatory and purgative pains. Meanwhile, occasional flashbacks to an indeterminate past — certainly more than a conventional lifetime ago — show Solveig serving as the resident herbalist and medicine woman to a clannish community that made use of her “powers” when needed. But fear trumped gratitude in the end, causing them to turn on her. We eventually realize there is long-unfinished business she hopes to resolve with these newcomers’ unknowing (and perhaps unwilling) assistance. 

“Mother of Flies” — named because Solveig’s oneness with nature attracts a whole lot of those insects — does have plenty of squirm-inducing content. Still, it’s more in the realm of bodily fluids and other organic yukkiness than violence or ghouls. These elements ultimately seem inseparable from the supposed necromancer’s overall relationship to Mother Earth, which suffuses the entire film. Cinematographers John and Zelda Adams create imagery whose documentation of natural life combined with witchy surrealism is often arresting, even enchanting, sometimes close to the experimental avant-garde. Additional design elements follow suit, contributing to a beautifully alien atmosphere more eerie and artful than frightening. That extends to John’s mostly ambient sound design — there’s relatively little music here, though the occasional song (duly by Adams family project H6LLBND6R) sometimes disrupts the spell a bit. 

The Adamses do just about everything on- and off-screen, with important assists from “fifth family member” Trey Lindsay, who’s responsible for the more fantastical effects. While such creative insularity is often a recipe for amateurism and/or vanity-project indulgence, they excel in every department here. Matriarch Poser, who has a Colleen Dewhurst-like gravity of presence, brings nary a hint of camp or stock bwa-ha-ha villainy to her striking characterization. She makes Solveig exist so palpably on a separate plane from normal human interactions, we grow to see our outside-world protagonists through her eyes, as somewhat baffling creatures short on basic understanding of how things really work. 

Daughter Zelda is very good as the cancer patient willing to believe anything to survive. Another daughter, Lulu Adams, makes an effective single-scene appearance as a townie who casually provides dad with alarming late insight into their hostess’ local legend. Father John is stuck this time with the most thankless role, as Jake is a little too obviously used as a device for conflict, obstructing Solveig’s sorcery with his cynicism. But it works, and the narrative trajectory you anticipate for him (as well as in general) proves wrong-footed — the fadeout here springs a satisfying surprise in its droll calm. 

Mainstream horror fans looking for a kill count and other standard genre jollies may be disappointed by the ways in which “Mother of Flies” raises those expectations, only to evade them. But more adventurous viewers will find this an occult drama unusually rich in distinctive aesthetic and offbeat tonal rewards.